Learning Curve
by jjonahjameson
Summary: In this beginning, the Web-Slinger had a few things to learn about protecting his city-and his city had a few things to learn about him! COMPLETE!
1. All in a Day's Work

_Disclaimer: Prepare for a shock...Spider-Man doesn't belong to me. Hope you're not too disappointed._

****

_This takes place after the first movie._

**_Chapter One: All In A Day's Work_**

The fat man sitting behind the desk was wearing a pristine, custom-tailored white suit, with a silk scarf tucked neatly around his blubbery neck and fastened with a diamond pin worth more than most third-world countries. The thin man sitting in front of the desk was wearing an all-concealing metallic gold cloak and hood, his face deep in shadow. The fat man, whose name was Wilson Fisk, grimaced to himself over the melodramatic fashion but made no comment. These costumed freaks were the cutting edge of villainy these days, and villainy was his business.

"Understand, I am willing to fund your newest project, but only in return for my participation in certain...details. Surely you realize the profits that can be made if your project is successful?" He spoke in a deep, booming voice which rang through the room. The caped individual's reply was a smooth, eerie whisper.

"This project has much wider implications than making a few dollars," he said. "Do you not have the vision to appreciate how the world will change—_when_ I succeed?" He tossed his head back arrogantly, and for just a moment light played across dark skin and strange, white-blue eyes.

Ignoring the dramatic declaration, Fisk leaned forward and demanded, "Do we have a deal, or not?"

"Indeed we do. Someday you will be able, unworthy though you are, to claim some small credit for the greatest political revolution of all time," the soft-spoken criminal replied. He stood and bowed gracefully, gold cape swirling around his feet as he turned to leave. "I look forward to receiving your first contribution." The bodyguards at Fisk's office door stood aside to let him pass, and Fisk sat back again with a snort.

The ego of these people, honestly. But megalomaniacs were easy to manipulate, easy for him to use. And the money-making potential was enormous. Closing this deal was definitely a good day's work.

Fisk smiled.

* * *

Looking down, Spider-Man watched a working girl pace the sidewalk. At least, he figured she must be a working girl, because no one else would be hanging around this neighborhood wearing that outfit in this cold. Spider-Man was crouched on the edge of a rooftop, blowing on his hands to keep them warm and wondering what he was doing wearing _his_ outfit in this cold. He hadn't been thinking about winter when he'd decided on spandex...maybe he could come up with a cold-weather version? Or hibernate until Spring. Come to think about it, spiders were summer creatures, weren't they? Yeah, he could be a seasonal vigilante, sounded good—

Suddenly the world slowed around him, and he whipped his head back downward, scanning the pavement urgently. He'd learned fast to pay attention to the odd sensation alerting him to oncoming danger. The working girl, her open coat leaving her shiny black mini and purple halter top uncovered, looked about the size of an action figure from the wall-crawler's point of view. She was making her pitch through the window of a car that had pulled up beside her. That wasn't it. Pedestrians strolled along and a few cabs zoomed by, nothing out of place there—wait. There, in the shadows between tall buildings, two men, confronting a man and his wife. The man was fumbling in his pocket, handing something over, and Spider-Man thought he could glimpse the end of a woman's purse already tucked into the armpit of the taller attacker, the one with the gun.

With a movement that was becoming second nature, Spidey aimed and shot a webline to the building across the way, hurling himself through the air like some kind of urbanized Tarzan. He set a course that would hopefully end with him sliding neatly between the two walls, right over the muggers' heads. Whooshing perfectly into the center the gap, he twisted and released the line, somersaulting to land firmly on both feet within arm's length of the confrontation. He gave himself a mental high-five; his web-slinging was getting more precise with practice.

The muggers and the couple being robbed barely had time to notice his passage overhead before Spider-Man reached out and snatched the purse from the purse snatcher.

"It's just not _you_, dah-ling," the vigilante drawled, tossing the purse gently at the woman, who let it drop to the pavement and kept staring at him. The tall mugger gaped wildly at the sudden appearance of a red-and-blue clad acrobat wearing a full-face mask and cracking stupid jokes, or at least he gaped until Spidey grabbed the gun with one hand and hit him lightly on the jaw with the other. The robber dropped cold. The web-slinger paused to check his pulse; he'd had a few bad moments already in his brief career when he'd hit someone a little too hard. So far, it had only resulted in a broken jaw, or two. When you had the strength to punch a hole through sheet steel you had to careful around fragile flesh and bone. Spider-Man had no wish to find himself weighted down with the responsibility for anyone's death. Well, no one else's death.

The second mugger didn't wait around to see what happened next—he took to his heels, running in a blind panic. Spidey leaped a few stories up the wall of the building and scuttled along, perpendicular to the street, after his prey. The robber was almost half a block away when he realized his sneakers weren't touching the ground anymore. He churned his feet uselessly in the air for a few comic moments before giving up, panting and gasping for breath as he hung limply from the web splattered over his back. Spider-Man attached the other end of the silken line to a lamppost high above the street. "Now, _this_ is a stick up!" the hero quipped, then hopped back over the vertical surface to where the couple were standing.

All of it had happened so fast, the people on the street were still figuring out what was going on. The working girl was leaning on the car window, with her head turned and an astonished expression on her face. An older lady, a couple of kids and a man in a business suit were all watching the action like it was some new kind of reality show. The kids started clapping, and one shouted, "Way to go, web-head!"

"You guys alright?" Spider-Man asked from his spot head-down on the wall above the almost-victims. The man was looking down at the first mugger and faintly repeating, "Oh my god, oh my god." His wife lowered her hands, took a deep breath, and let out a scream that they probably heard all the way to Madison Park. "Ah, right...good," Spidey mumbled. Distantly over the screaming he heard the discordant wail of sirens. Spider-Man hesitated only a moment, webbing the unconscious man to the pavement, before flipping himself around the corner into the dark space between the buildings and moving up and over as fast as he could, onto the roofs before swinging across the street on the other side. The scream faded into the distance.

Even with the chill air blowing into his face, Spider-Man was getting warmer as he bounced and soared between buildings, feeling good. Letting go of a line, he landed smoothly on a rounded light pole in what was for him a comfortable crouch. Below, cars and cabs and buses had snarled to a stop, and he felt a little smug as he shot another line from his wrist and continued on his way. Crossing town by web, Spider-Man didn't have to worry about crowded subways or buses running late—he was in a traffic pattern all his own.

Web-slinging was a blast and Spider-Man had become addicted to the sheer joy of throwing himself through the air, every muscle performing faultlessly, gracefully. _If someone'd told me in high school that I'd be swinging over Madison Avenue someday wearing tights, and enjoying every minute of it, I'd have asked them what they were taking,_ he thought. Grinning under his mask, Spider-Man let sound a horrible lord-of-the-jungle yodel as he swooped over Manhattan. _ This is the only way to fly._

* * *

Detective Lamont leaned against a patrol car, sipped his coffee and watched, bored, as the paramedics bent over the mugger lying pinned to the pavement by a large, glistening web. All attempts to break or cut the thin strands had been unsuccessful, and now they were simply making what assessment they could of the man's condition while waiting for the web to melt. After several months of 'spider scenes', dealing with sticky substances had become old hat for New York's finest. Lamont hated it. Spiders were creepy enough when they were the right size and only left webs in dark corners. The idea of a man-sized spider catching criminal flies weirded him out, and waiting for the long strands of spider silk to melt was a waste of time.

Over by his patrol car, Officer Sanderson was questioning the handcuffed man who had been hanging from the light post. _If that mook had half a brain, he'd have slid his arms out of his jacket _before_ we got here,_ Lamont thought sourly. The short, pudgy crook had been too freaked by the whole incident to work out that it was only his jacket that was stuck, not him. Poor schmuck seemed almost grateful to see the police. He stuttered and shook while giving his statement. Sanderson was carefully taking it down, not saying anything but an occasional "Mm, then what?" but Lamont could see the corners of his mouth twitch as he tried to suppress his laughter. Great, another officer who got a kick out of spider attacks. The detective closed his eyes in frustration. That damn costumed freak had the police running around cleaning up his messes, making cops look ridiculous as they chased after a crime-fighting insect.

Lamont crumpled his Styrofoam cup and threw it into the back of the car. Another report to write up including sentences like, "On-lookers describe the man as red, blue, and limber..." God.

_Where's an exterminator when you need one?_


	2. This is Not a Date

_A/N: Work is keeping me from going to the see the movie? Fine, fan fiction is keeping me from work. I have a life. I prefer to ignore it._

**_Chapter Two: This is Not a Date_**

Peter slid his hand nervously over his hair, and jumped the last step out of the bus. The young part-time physics student and full-time hero walked through the crisp night air to Mary Jane's apartment building, his palms sweating. He had taken on the Green Goblin, faced public outrage, literally laughed in the face of danger. He could do this.

He couldn't do this. Peter stood in the entrance, shifting from foot to foot as he tried to work up the courage to ring the buzzer for number 23. Deep breaths, go on...

Peter hadn't seen the lovely redhead since the day of Norman Osborn's funeral. Reeling from the horror of Osborn's death—and life—wrung out with pity by Harry's ironic declaration of friendship and revenge, Peter had sought out his uncle's grave, looking down at the simple stone as if it carried words of advice or comfort. But all he could read engraved on its polished face were the same words that had come to define his life. _With great power comes great responsibility._

Then Mary Jane had come to him, her arms around him giving all the comfort a silent grave refused him. She had begun to speak, words that cut through his pain and confusion like knives to his heart. If she had only waited for another day, another time, he might have weakened, might have told her how much he loved her, how she had shaped his life, his dreams. If she had come to him anywhere but over Ben Parker's grave, declared her love for him any time but at the funeral of his tragic enemy, he might not have had the strength to turn her away. To tell her he could only be her friend. In some ways, MJ had the worst timing in the world.

Peter reached out and jabbed the buzzer with his thumb. The door responded instantly with a click, as if MJ had been waiting for him to get his act together and ring. Heart pounding, Peter pulled it open, got on the elevator and took it up to the carpeted hallway leading to her door. Knocking on her door, his felt his head spin for a panicked heartbeat—he'd had nightmares like this, where he'd gone to meet her and found himself standing in public in his costume, his mask off, people all around laughing and pointing while MJ stared at him in shock. He looked down quickly to make sure, yep, jacket, Henley and jeans, costume tucked safely under his sleeves and below his collar. When MJ opened the door, her eyebrow rose and her cheek dimpled to see Peter standing there, staring intently at his own chest. He looked up, caught her expression, and blushed.

"Ah, um...hi," Peter dredged up an awkward smile. There was a pause. "So, uh, nice place."

"Yeah, tiger, it is," MJ was trying hard not to laugh. "Why don't you come in and see it?" Peter turned red again and stepped past her as she stood aside and shut the door behind him. He looked around the little space, decorated with cheap furniture and bright throws. Mary Jane came around in front of him and studied the carpet, rocking back on her heels with her thumbs hooked in the belt loops of her jeans. The silence grew heavy.

"Um, yeah, it's...a nice place," Peter finally came up with, in desperation, and MJ did laugh, raising her head and brushing her hair back. Peter felt something inside him squeeze tight as he watched her, a slender girl wearing jeans and a green sweater, hair glowing as if the life and kindness inside her had to show itself as light. "Thank you...for asking me to come over. I wanted to see you," he added, his voice soft.__

MJ nodded a little, still studying the carpet. "Well, I thought...if we're going to be friends, I...you did say, you wanted to be friends, so...this is a friendly thing, a friends-going-to-the-movies thing."

"Right, which is, entirely...great," Peter answered. He still wasn't sure this was a good idea, but he'd told her he'd be there for her. That meant he had to respond, sooner or later, to her invitations to spend some time together. A movie seemed safe, they wouldn't have to talk much.

He knew, from Aunt May, that Mary Jane had stayed with her mother for a couple of weeks after the Green Goblin's last attack. She'd been afraid to sleep alone. Peter would have given anything...he pushed that thought savagely away. No, this wasn't a good idea. And the silence was gaining weight again. "Then, do you know what you want to see? It's been awhile since I," he hesitated, "have seen what's showing."

"I know it, mystery man," MJ got her coat out of the closet. "You're never home, and when you are, you're always too busy to hang out. I nearly dropped the phone in shock when you said you'd come over tonight." Peter felt a pang of guilt lodge in his chest, adding another tight band around his heart, but MJ's tone was light. "You in the mood for drama, or feeling like some action?"

Certain that his face was a red as it could get without pulling his mask on, Peter managed to stammer that anything was fine with him. She was so beautiful. He followed her out the door, loving her teasing smile, her lively eyes, the gentle curves highlighted by her close-fitting coat. It was a surreal moment. Peter had to stop and remind himself that yes, he was here with Mary Jane Watson, going together to a movie. He'd fantasized about it so often in high school, dreaming of her through boring classes and alone in his room. He wouldn't have believed this was real if it wasn't for the bitter knowledge that it was a _friendly_ thing; because he, Peter Parker, had insisted that it couldn't be anything else.

There were almost to the movie theater when he heard the sirens. _Nope, not gonna go there,_ he thought. Ignoring them, he turned to smile at MJ, who was chatting brightly about something that had happened at work. She didn't even notice the sirens; in New York, they were part of the background, there all the time. Peter lost track of what she was saying again as another siren shrieked its way across the neighborhood. _Not tonight, even your...friendly...neighborhood heroes get a night off now and then._ An ambulance joined the disaster parade and Peter looked down the street—just curiosity, nothing more—to see what was up. There was already a fire truck parked down there, by the elementary school. He could see patrol cars pulling up around the old brick building. MJ was looking at him inquisitively, had she asked a question? He glanced over at the school once more as another ambulance went by, and MJ finally looked down the street too.

"Looks like something's up," she observed cheerfully. Peter focused on her, took a deep breath and said casually, "Yeah." He went up to the booth and bought two tickets for _The Terminal_. Handing one ticket to the girl at his side, he moved with her into the theater lobby. The sound of the sirens was abruptly deadened.

"Hey, Mary Jane? Would you mind...going into the movie without me? Just," Peter thought frantically, "I forgot to lock up." _Well, that's lame._ "I'm going to go call my landlord, see if he'll go up and make sure my door is closed..." MJ had that expression on her face again, with one eyebrow up. "It, uh, might take a little while, to uh, track him down...just, well, I'll be back fast, OK?"

"OK, I guess," she said slowly, obviously puzzled and not buying it for a second.

"Thanks. Seriously, right back." Peter headed back out the glass doors. Mary Jane looked after him, dumbfounded, and then turned to look at the bank of payphones on the right side of the lobby. "Ooo-kay."

* * *

Detective Lamont lit a cigarette. His wife nagged at him to quit, but he knew it was a simple choice; either he had a smoke now and then to help him relax, or he throttled one of the nitwits working on the force. You could call it a life-saving device.

The patrol cars were still splashing the buildings and pavement with red light, but the ambulances had turned off their sirens. Lamont headed into the school, which had that eerie, haunted feel of all schools late at night. The kindergarten rooms were down their own hall, the bulletin boards along the walls decorated with earnest crayon drawings and a flock of white papers doves hanging from the ceiling. The detective was pretty sure that was a violation of the fire code. The doors were painted in bright primary colors, like a zoo or an insane asylum. Or did they use pastels for the insane? Something mellow to calm them down. You'd think that would be better for packs of hyperactive five year olds, too. Lamont was aware that his mind was jittering from subject to subject, trying not to think about what they'd found in Mrs. Reed's room.

"Detective?" Officer Ruiz was holding the door for him. "Forensics is on its way, photographers are about through."

"So, have they done fingerprints yet?" Lamont asked.

"No..." Ruiz was puzzled. "Like I said, Forensics is on its way."

_I need another cigarette._ "Then what are you doing with your bare hand on the door of the crime scene?" Ruiz started and jerked his hand away guiltily. "Great. Any witnesses?"

"Just the one. It was a PTA meeting, something about protesting the new curriculum. Bunch of teachers and parents in here," Ruiz indicated the room with his head, keeping his hands tucked into his armpits. Good man. "Mrs. Wright, Kelly Wright, she's the third grade teacher, she went out to the ladies'," he nodded vaguely down the hall. "She was gone five minutes, maybe, and when she came back...well, she found them. She was hysterical when she called us. She's not much better now."

Lamont nodded, pulling on rubber gloves and opening the blue-painted door carefully by pulling at the top corner. Inside, a circle of folding chairs had been arranged on a rug covered in pictures round yellow cars driving over wide cartoon roads through green lawns. A glance around revealed that the relentlessly cheerful room was neat and tidy, nothing out of place. Except, of course, for the remains of the PTA meeting, still sitting in the circle of chairs. The windows were all closed and barred; Mrs. Reed and Mrs. Wright, who ran the PTA, had let everyone in with their keys and left the doors locked. From the inside, they opened when pushed, so the killer could have hidden inside the school, waiting for it to clear out, for the meeting to start. Then he had come into this room and...what? What could kill twelve people without a mark–leaving them sitting stiffly with their eyes wide open, looking for all the world like they were waiting for someone to call the meeting to order.

Lamont sent Ruiz out to keep the medical personnel on hold, leaving him alone in the room for a few precious moments. He thought best when he was alone, treasured the chance to have a few minutes of unobserved observation. He knew they would get the person responsible for this. But his first examination of the room revealed nothing unusual. Sitting by Mrs. Reed's chair was a pile of folders and a large bound file, a copy of the new curriculum. Lamont had heard about that, his own kids were getting the version for the upper grades. The state had accepted a huge donation of education materials from businessman Wilson Fisk, who was being lauded all over the television for his philanthropy. A vocal group was protesting the new curriculum, because Fisk had insisted on including advertising for company products in the text books and work books. A lot of people thought it was wrong to target advertising at young children, at school, where they might think the products were endorsed by their teachers.

Fisk had appeared personally on television, holding up a shiny new math book in his pudgy hands, brushing the criticism aside. He had pointed out, in his huge booming voice, the benefits he was bringing to give poor, inner-city schools with his charity program. Their corporate sponsors were helping all children to succeed, he claimed.

Going gloomily over the crime scene, Lamont almost missed the figure crouched against the ceiling. Just like the pictures in the tabloids, it wore a form-fitting bodysuit with a tight hood hiding its face entirely. Blank white eyes gleamed in the florescent lights. Lamont thought it was looking away from him, but it was hard to tell.

"This is a crime scene, buddy," the detective said, his voice rough with anger. "You need to get lost."

Spider-Man twitched, turning his face toward the cop. "What happened here?"

"What, you don't have ears? I said, get lost," Lamont was kneeling next to the circle of chairs, flipping carefully through the stack of papers with gloved hands and a pencil. He refused to get up and face that thing on the ceiling, although the hairs were rising on the back of his neck. _What is it about this city and freaks?_ "I guess if what I've heard is accurate, drawing a gun on you is a waste of time, but I'm this close to trying it, buddy."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist, detective, we're on the same side here—"

"—like hell—"

"—I'm just seeing if there's anything I can do to help." Spider-Man said, ingratiatingly.

Lamont grunted and reached toward the teacher's desk. As he touched the handle of the drawer, strong hands suddenly slid under his armpits, hauling him upwards. Spider-Man twisted to kick at the barred window with one stocking-covered foot, sending glass and metal flying, and heaved the larger man through, following a heartbeat later. As the two men hit the pavement, a blast of hot air shoved them even further and knocked them apart. The detective, bruised and scratched, rolled over and sat up on his elbows, his mouth dropping open in shock as he saw the flames licking from the blown out windows. The whole room had exploded.


	3. News

**_Chapter Three: News_**

His eyes were a strange white-blue, making him look blind, but he scanned the paper he held with obvious comprehension. The headline made him chuckle—just like that fool, Jameson to publish a ranting editorial instead of encouraging real investigative reporting. While all the time, the real criminals went unnoticed, exactly as planned.

Setting the paper aside, the thin assassin got to his feet and threw a long gold cloak around his shoulders. As he pulled the hood over his face, the cloth seemed to come alive, clinging in swirling folds to his body. He walked quickly out of the shabby apartment, closing the door behind him and moving quickly down the alleyway, unseen by the few people out and about this early in the morning.

It would not do to miss this appointment. It was vital that he oversee the next phase of the Consensus Project, to make sure the mobster known as Kingpin who was fronting his operation did not get his oversized hands on any of the precious devices before the were ready to be planted at the schools. His invention would bring peace and strength to America. He was the only one to see that no one but the people, _we the people_, had the power to right all that had gone wrong with this great country. Wilson Fisk saw nothing but the dollar signs. Ah well, he'd deal with that blind fool soon enough.

Meanwhile, Jameson and the police could chase each other's tails, wasting time on the web-slinger. The assassin chuckled again.

* * *

**SPIDER-MAN WANTED FOR SCHOOL MASSACRE**

**_by Ben Urich_**__

  


_Witnesses place Spider-Man at P.S. 134 last night, shortly before a bomb placed in a teacher's desk drawer exploded, causing thousands of dollars of damage to the elementary school. Police were already at the scene, investigating a murderous rampage, which claimed the lives of three teachers and ten parents. The NYPD has not yet found physical evidence linking the wall-crawler to the deaths, as the explosion destroyed most of the crime scene, but survivors claim that super-human speed and unknown weapons were used in the brutal massacre. The **Daily Bugle** calls on the people of New York to petition the police for quick apprehension of a man who, if not the perpetrator of the crime, has failed to come forward with information vital to the investigation and may be... (continued on page A4)_

__

Dr. Curt Connors set the paper aside in disgust. The tabloids got worse every day, and he couldn't believe that the public was that gullible. Didn't anyone remember how Spider-Man had rescued those kids on the 59th Street Bridge? If it weren't for the crossword page, he'd have stopped buying the _Daily Bugle_ years ago.

A knock sounded at the door, and Connors yelled, "Come in!" Peter Parker stepped into the tiny office, swinging his backpack down to rest on the floor. As usual, the brilliant student looked tired and distracted. Connors knew that Parker's uncle and guardian had died earlier that year, and he suspected that his prize student was still dealing with the tragedy. The university professor knew, from personal experience, that grief could do strange things to you, and could still be there months after you thought you had moved on. Although he had to fire Parker from his lab job for repeatedly failing to show up on time—or at all—he was sympathetic to his situation, and wanted to help if he could. Connors hadn't found met a freshman with so much potential in years, and he wasn't about to stand aside and let him miss the opportunities waiting for him.

"Parker, I'm glad you could make it," Dr. Connors swiveled his chair to look sternly at Parker, his one hand resting on the desk. His other arm had been lost in the war when he had been an army surgeon. The sleeve of his white shirt was neatly folded and pinned on the left side. "I wish to discuss your report on the historical applications of atomic technology," he said. Parker looked nervous, and Connors could tell he was wondering if there had been a problem with the paper. "It was, in a word, exceptional," he continued. The boy blinked in surprise and looked pleased.

Connors started drawing abstract patterns with one finger on his desk. He wasn't good at approaching personal subjects with his students..."Um, Parker, I know that you've had a recent...loss, in your life, and that consequently—well, I know that paying for a college education can be difficult without the financial support you might have been expecting."

He paused. "There is a scholarship, a considerable scholarship, which would cover not only tuition but includes a large stipend for textbooks, room and board. It is offered only to the nation's outstanding science students, and the competition is fierce. Normally, I would not encourage a freshman to try for it, but given the kind of work I know you are capable of producing, and given your needs, I think you should submit an application. You must include a copy of a research paper—I think the atomic paper will be sufficient—and an essay on your ambitions and qualifications." He picked up a cream-colored, heavy sheet of paper and offered it to the surprised student.

Parker took the application form and looked at it with a slight frown. "This, would be—I don't know, Dr. Connors, absolutely fantastic. If I really stand a chance..."

"Whether you do or not, you'll never know unless you try," Dr. Connors replied briskly. "You also need three academic recommendations—I will write one and approach your other professors. All you have to do is bring this application and your essay back to me before next Friday." Dr. Connors tapped the desk sharply, making Parker look up with a start. "_Friday_, Parker. The scholarship committee will not accept late entries, or cut you any slack, no matter what excuses you make. Do you understand?"

Nodding seriously, Parker looked at him with his jaw firm and determination showing in his eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Great," Connors thought that succeeding with this might help ease the boy out of his depression, above and beyond helping his financial situation. "Now, get lost, I've got work to do," he smiled.

Parker smiled back, tucking the application into his backpack and heading out the door. Connors grinned. Giving a good student a chance at something important was a great part of being a teacher.

* * *

Spider-Man released one webline, kicking and arching his back as he swung over the last street to land on the balcony of his apartment. The apartment was a horrible, dingy little room holding nothing much but a bed and a sink, but it was cheap and it had the most important thing: a window he could sneak in and out of as Spider-Man. Sliding his backpack off his shoulders, Peter stepped inside and yanked his mask off his sweaty face.

He had intended to go straight home and start on his essay, but there had been a gang fight on Second Avenue. Flying bullets had endangered the neighborhood residents and clueless pedestrians who had wandered into the war zone. The wall-crawler ended the fight quickly, webbing the shooters indiscriminately against the walls of buildings, while the alarmed gangsters stopped shooting at each other and started shooting at him. Dodging bullets while leaping from wall to wall firing webs might have been an extraordinary experience for some, but it had become routine for Spider-Man—so routine that he hadn't been paying as much attention as he should have and moved a shade too slowly out of the way. A bullet had grazed his side, leaving a burning streak across his ribs. It wasn't deep, but wow it stung.

As Peter dropped his mask on the bed the phone rang shrilly. Scooping it up, Peter spared a thought for all the people he didn't want to talk to right now. "Hello?"

"Hi, Peter." Mary Jane. Yep, that would be number one on the list. "Oh, hi."

"I wanted to make sure you were alright," she said. "Since you never got back to the movie last night. It was pretty good, by the way. I've been calling all morning."

Peter looked down at his bleeding side, fingering the rip in his costume. "Right, I got...tied up, I should have called you, but it was late and there was class this morning, and..." MJ cut across his babble.

"Look, Pete, I didn't call to give you a hard time. I really wanted to make sure you're OK, and not just because of last night."

Moving over to the sink, Peter tucked the phone under his chin so he could run water over a washrag. "What do you mean?" Great, now his gloves were all wet.

"It's...you've been there for me, Peter, when I needed you. It's why I—anyway, I get the feeling that you need someone to be there for you, now."

He rubbed the washcloth over the wound slowly, wiping off the blood. It had almost stopped bleeding.

"Pete?" MJ broke the silence. "OK, maybe I'm imagining things, I didn't mean to..." She sounded upset now.

"You're not imagining things, MJ," Peter said awkwardly. "But...it's not something I can talk about." He dropped the rag in the sink and leaned his head against the mirror, feeling the cool glass against his forehead. "But, you know something, MJ? Just talking to you, just having you call and not give me a hard time? You've helped already," he said. His voice sounded hoarse in his own ears.

"Oh," Mary Jane sounded unsure. "Then, I'm glad. You know...if there's anything else, I'm here. You...I guess you're the best friend I've ever had, Pete. I don't mean that...no pressure, you know? But I'm here. I'll always be here."

"Thank you," Peter whispered.

"You're welcome, tiger. Talk to you later, OK?" After she hung up, Peter stood there for a few minutes, staring at his reflection: a college kid in a spandex suit, with a bloody gash on one side and a phone in his hand. What was wrong with him, that he could have won the love of a girl like MJ and turned it down? He was willing to bet that there wasn't another girl in New York who would have called him after being stood up in public—to see if _he_ was OK.

Slowly, Peter walked over and hung up the receiver. As he set it down, it rang again.

"Hello?"

"Peter, my friend, where ya been?" Harry Osborn. Great. Number two on the list of people he didn't want to talk to right now.

* * *

_Unfortunately, Real Life has got me by the throat right now, so updates may be slow in coming. But if you hit that button I might slack off at work some more...I definitely write for feedback!_


	4. I Love Spidey

**_Chapter Four: I ♥ Spidey_**

"Hey, slow down!" Lamont shouted. His son completely ignored him, continuing to swoosh around the living room with his hands in the air. Shaking his head, Lamont dodged the legos scattered over the floor and sank down on the couch with his beer. As a detective, he didn't usually get Saturdays afternoons off. Noisy kid and all, he was enjoying every moment of it. Stretching his sore back (landing on the pavement had left some bruises) he sat back to watch the game.

"_Bradley!_ Don't make me come in there!" Mindy Lamont shrieked from the other side of the house. Rolling his eyes, Brad leaped over a lego tower and hovered over his toy trucks saying, "Vroom! Crash!" under his breath and doing something with string.

"Bye, Dad, bye Mom!" Cheri hollered, moving suspiciously fast toward the door.

"Hang on, young lady," Lamont said. Cheri looked back with her best innocent expression, hand still on the doorknob. "Dad, I'm just heading to the Starbucks, Tasha and I are going to study for mid-terms, no big deal," she said, all in one breath.

Lamont eyed the length of her skirt. "If you think you're leaving this house dressed like that, you got another think coming," he said. Cheri sighed with irritation and turned around, hands on hips and coat open in front.

Lamont spit beer all down the front of his shirt. His fourteen-year-old daughter was wearing a tight white t-shirt with "I ♥ Spidey" straining across the front, over the picture of a red circle with two pointed white eyes. "Where the—heck—did you get that shirt?" he managed to stammer out.

"Cool, huh? They were selling them out on the pier last week," Cheri replied. "Totally hot."

"Cheri, hon," her mother said, carrying a laundry basket into the room, "you know that guy's just a publicity stunt they came up with to sell tabloids." She put the basket on the floor and started gathering towels out of the kitchen.

"No way, Mom, Tasha says her cousin was at the Unity Fair this summer and she saw him, honest to God," Cheri said. "She says her cousin says he's unbelievable."

Lamont opened his mouth and closed it again. There was no way he was going to say he'd met the wall-crawler, up close and personal. First, he hadn't told his wife about his near-death experience and wasn't going to now—and second, no way was he going to encourage his daughter to idolize some eight-legged freak.

Mindy picked up the basket and walked across the room again, looking harassed and pushing sweaty brown hair out of her eyes. "Cheri, sweetie, I don't think—"

"I'm the aaaamazing SPIDER-MAN!" Brad suddenly shouted at full volume, running across the room with string trailing from his hands and jumping on the couch. Cheri took advantage of her parents' distraction to make it out the door, her blond hair whipping behind her as she pulled the door shut. Mindy yelled at Brad to get off the furniture. Lamont got up, got himself another beer, and decided to stop thinking. This was his afternoon off.

* * *

Peter stood nervously in the foyer of the Osborn mansion, waiting for Harry. He looked around at the dark, luxurious furnishings. Harry had invited Peter to come live with him, after his father's death, but Peter had passed. Not only did he not want to become some kind of hanger-on, sponging off his rich best friend, but the whole idea of living in Norman Osborn's house was too much to take. Not to mention Harry's growing obsession with finding Spider-Man.

"Peter, you made it! Thought I was going to have to hunt you down," Harry called cheerfully, starting down the flight of stairs leading to the foyer. As usual these days, he was wearing a tailored suit and silk tie, shoulders thrown back and a wide grin on his face. Peter thought he was trying too hard, hoping to look like the sharp executive he wasn't.

"Well, you caught me at a good time," Peter said. "So, dinner at the mansion. I think I'm underdressed," he added sheepishly, rocking back and forth on his heels.

"Come on, I just wanted to spend some time with you for a change. I thought feeding you something other than cheap take-out might work—it gets you to visit your aunt." Harry's smile looked bitter. Peter sighed inwardly. He could be at home, getting his application filled out, writing that essay, but Harry had been insistent and Peter had felt guilty enough to give in. He hadn't seen much of his friend since the funeral. Even without the—spidery—complications, it was hard, these days, to be around Harry. He radiated need and insecurity, making everyone near feel helpless and uncomfortable. Peter followed him reluctantly into the giant rec room on the second floor.

Harry snapped on the big-screen television, turning it to the football game, and loosened up enough to take off his jacket and tie. Dinner was steak, on china plates, and Peter felt ridiculous. It was like Harry was playing dress up, parading all the signs of his tremendous wealth that had embarrassed him so much in high school. They talked some, Harry asking about school and nodding through the answers with such obviously faked interest that Peter wanted to shake him. Once Harry got started on his own news, it was worse. He bragged about how well he was handling OsCorp, how he was going to take the company places his father had never dreamed, while he worked his way through a six-pack. Peter started wondering if there was a tactful way he could suggest therapy.

The game fuzzed out, and was replaced by a live news bulletin. A tanned anchorman, trying to project intelligence while still showing off his perfect teeth, smiled seriously at the camera. "This just in. Councilor Chan Huey, of the Manhattan borough, was shot and killed this afternoon while exiting the capitol building. Details at this time are sketchy, but it appears he was shot in the back with a high-powered rifle. At this time, no suspects have been arrested. We turn now to Marisol Gutierrez at the capitol building. Marisol?"

Harry picked up the remote and shut the TV off. "Great, now they'll be talking about that hours. Forget about the game, man," he threw the remote at the coffee table and leaned his head on the back of the couch. "You wanna watch something else?"

Peter stood up. "Actually, I'd better take off," he said. Councilor Huey—Peter had seen him on the news before. His most recent crusade was against Wilson Fisk and the corporate-sponsored curriculum that was being offered to New York's public schools. About all Peter had been able to get out of that grey-haired detective—what's-his-name, Lamont—after the explosion was that the victims in that horrible room had been a PTA meeting, protesting the new curriculum. It was paper thin, but it was two violent incidents connected to one subject in two days. And it was a reason to leave that didn't make him feel guilty, well, too guilty about ducking out on Harry. "This is fun, but you know, I've got a ton of homework." That was true enough, even if he didn't intend to do it.

"Yeah, whatever. Be seeing you." Harry waved it off like it didn't matter to him. With a sullen pout on his face, he picked up the remote and started flipping through channels, ignoring Peter as he left. Peter sighed.

* * *

Detective Lamont strolled back to the unmarked car he had left parked near the coffee bar, cup in hand, and reached for the sandwich he'd left sitting on the roof. He nearly lost his balance as the sandwich, wrapped in white paper, stayed firmly in place. Frowning, Lamont reached out again, closed his hand around the stubborn food and tugged. The sandwich refused to move. Lifting one end of the paper, Lamont looked underneath, trying to pull it up. Then he heard sniggering, coming from somewhere over his head.

"Oh, man, you should see your face," Spider-Man laughed, hanging head-down and holding onto a web with his hands and the soles of his feet. "That was priceless."

"You know, buddy, my third-grader has a more mature sense of humor," Lamont growled, opening the paper and removing the sandwich. Wonderful. The paper was going to stay stuck on the roof of his car, flapping around wherever he went. Spider-Man was snorting again. Lamont bit into the sandwich more savagely than necessary.

"And now that I have your attention," the wall-crawler continued, "I'd like to know if you saw the news about Councilor Huey last night."

"Yes, I did. And you know what, bug? The police are capable of making connections, too," Lamont growled around a mouthful.

"Why does everyone get that wrong? Spiders aren't bugs. They're arachnids. Say it with me, boys and girls—a-rach-nid."

"Arach-noid is more like it. Look, buddy, I don't mean to sound ungrateful for you hauling my butt out of the fire the other night—"

"Cops can make connections, but can they search councilor's houses without a warrant? Play nice and I'll tell you what I found," Spider-Man swung gently back and forth as Lamont glared at him.

"OK, first that's unethical, and second—"

"Huey had gathered a lot of information on Fisk's new program. I didn't take anything, no one even knows I was there, but I skimmed through enough to figure out that Huey suspected Fisk of criminal dealings. Not just underhanded stuff, you know, but actual prison-term-here-I-come lawbreaking. _And_ he was in contact with several concerned education organizations, including the PTA at P.S. 134. Mrs. Reed was invited to a strategy meeting next week."

Lamont sipped his coffee for a moment, thinking furiously. "Still unethical. And I can't get the information legally unless the investigation uncovers probable cause—"

"Oh, come on, just call it a tip off. Or ask the family for permission."

"Do you ever let anyone finish a sentence, bug?" Lamont glared. "And can't you talk right-side up like a normal person?"  
  
Spider-Man flipped his legs over his head and landed on the pavement. Lamont was surprised to find that the vigilante barely reached his chin—it was hard to tell he was on the small side when you were always craning your neck to look at him.

Spider-Man strolled casually over to the coffee bar down the sidewalk, where a gaping cashier had been leaning over the counter, trying to hear what they were saying. "One coffee," he ordered.

Mouth hanging open, the cashier moved automatically to fill a Styrofoam cup and handed it to Spider-Man, who dug at his waist—there were pockets in that outfit?—and paid. Popping her gum and giggling, the multi-pierced blond leaned her elbows back on the counter and watched him return to perch on the hood of the detective's car. Pulling his mask up to his nose, Spider-Man sipped and turned expectantly to Lamont. "So, what next?"

"Think I can crawl up walls if I drink enough caffeine?" Lamont wondered out loud. "What's the use of a mask if you're going to pull it up like that?"

"Right, I can see the poster now. 'Suspect described as a Caucasian male with a chin'," Spider-Man sighed. "Look, I'm going to check out Fisk. I just want to know, if I find something, that there's someone I can take it to."

Lamont frowned again. Like it or not, the web-head had just saved him a bunch of time by confirming what had only been a vague possibility. Sure, they'd have to back it up officially, but with fourteen people dead in two days, the speed that the bug—arachnid—could unofficially use to move the investigation along might save lives.

"I'm not saying anything, buddy. Wilson Fisk is a respectable businessman with a lot of pull in this city. You get caught spying on him, there's no one going to back you up. But—" he paused, looking out at the street, "I don't turn down helpful information from anonymous sources."

"Yes!" Spider-Man crumpled the cup and tossed it at the trash can 15 feet away by the coffee bar, yelled "two points!" as the cashier clapped, and then bounded up the wall. Lamont ate the last bite of his sandwich without watching him go.

* * *

Spidey headed uptown, toward Fisk's main offices on 83rd Street. As he leaped over rooftops and danced past streets he did a couple of extra flips, showing off. The air felt good in his face, it a beautiful day, and it looked like he was on to something big. Thoughts of Harry and an essay waiting to get done crossed his mind but there was plenty of time yet. When he slid the mask over his face, sometimes it felt like the weight of the world dropped from his shoulders.

Of course, the Green Goblin hadn't been fun. And he needed to stay focused, if he didn't want to run into another bullet because he wasn't paying enough attention. But after all, Fisk wasn't the Goblin. How bad could this get?


	5. Cheap Shot

**_Chapter Five: Cheap Shot_**

Mary Jane stepped out of her parents' house and stopped, her body tensed and her eyes closed. Too bad she couldn't close her ears. Behind her, her father's voice rose up to a crescendo, only to be topped by her mother's high-pitched yell. The argument was trivial, as always. Anyone would think they were looking for reasons to tear at each other. Coming back here, even overnight, made her stomach roll with helplessness and frustration.

Sighing, she looked over the Parkers' backyard, neat and quiet in the Sunday afternoon sun. Right then, more than anything in the world, she longed for Peter to step out the door, be there with her, hold her. It was ironic that all the years he had lived here she hadn't cared, barely noticing her shy neighbor, and now he was gone she wished desperately that she had the chance to be near him again.

She had learned from him how to step out of yourself for a moment, to take the time to see another person. It was nothing more than that, and it was everything. He hadn't made all her problems go away, she wasn't looking for him to make everything right, but he had made her real because he cared enough to understand her. She had taken the lesson to heart, recognizing the power that came from just listening. Whether or not he ever loved her, she was becoming a stronger person because of him.

Resting her hands on the fence between the two houses, MJ kicked at the gravel. In the background, her dad was screaming something obscene, but she ignored it and thought about Peter. Nothing about him made sense lately. She wasn't a genius but she was smart enough to know something was going on. The day of Norman Osborn's funeral, when she had kissed him and he had turned her away, she had come up with a crazy idea of what it could be, but she didn't have the courage to approach him with it. Not yet.

The front door slammed violently and she jumped, glancing at the back door. She knew what happened now. Her dad would stay at the bar until late, getting tanked, while her mom did her drinking at home. Tomorrow they'd wake up with hangovers, too sick to do more than snip viciously at each other while her mom got ready for work and her dad called in sick. _Yeah,_ MJ thought tiredly, _you're ready to start listening to people, sure, but you don't have the guts to go in there and talk to Mom. You don't want to hear it._ Over the fence, the house next door was serene. That was where MJ wanted to belong, in a world where people cared about each other and cared for each other. Peter's world. Hesitating, she looked at his back door. Even if Peter wasn't there, she could go over and talk to Aunt May, couldn't she? The white-haired lady had always made her welcome and treated her like family.

Mary Jane smiled, sticking the toes of her tennis shoes into the links and hauling herself over the fence. Peter had shut the door on her, but she wasn't giving up yet. Maybe Aunt May knew what was up with him, and if not, maybe they could talk him over together.

Running lightly to the Parkers' back door, MJ rapped on the window. There was no answer, but through the glass MJ could see a pot bubbling on the stove. She knocked again, a little louder. White foam was sliding over the sides of the pot, hitting the burner. It definitely needed to be turned down. Leaning to one side, MJ peered in and knocked again, this time loudly. That pot was really making a mess. Uncertainly, MJ tried the handle. The door was unlocked, so she stepped gingerly in—as if walking softly meant she wasn't trespassing—and grabbed the pot's handle, setting it to one side and turning the stove off. Turning, she opened her mouth to call Aunt May. It stayed open as she saw the tumbled white hair and an arm lying across the entrance to the dining room. The scene was so wrong, she had to stand and wait for her mind to catch up with her eyes. When it did, she ran over to see. Then she grabbed the phone and starting dialing nine-one-one.

* * *

Spider-Man was moving carefully and quietly through a claustrophobic metal duct, much faster than he could have say, a year ago. In fact, a year ago he wouldn't have crawled through a duct that size if you had paid him. Now, the confining space felt entirely comfortable. This might have been a side-effect of the genetic change which had altered his life, or it might have been because he knew he could now break the duct wide open with a shrug of his shoulders. He preferred to think it was the second option. The idea that his attitudes might be different because his genes had picked up some extra information was...unpleasant, somehow.

Breaking and entering, on the other hand, was a guilty pleasure. Spider-Man had landed on the roof of Collins Towers, home of Wilson Fisk's executive offices, bypassing all the security at the entrance aimed at people who didn't travel forty stories up. He had considered going through the roof-access door, but as he reached for the handle the feeling he had dubbed 'spider-sense' kicked in. Startled, he pulled his hand back, and it faded out. Looking closely at the door, he discovered that it was not only locked but alarmed. Skittering over the side of the building, he put his hand out to break a window and felt the same warning sweep over him. _Cool, _he thought. _Built-in burglary equipment._ He'd wasted ten minutes playing with this new application of his gifts.

He really didn't want to indulge in criminal tendencies, but slipping in and out of places unnoticed was _fun_. Like a video game made large as life. Locating a metal duct that had no security around it, he had wiggled his way in and headed down. If Fisk was involved in the recent deaths, searching his offices could save lives. If he wasn't...well, Spider-Man wasn't hurting anything.

Except the vent cover he broke when he spotted an empty office and moved out onto the ceiling. Apologetically, he set the broken grill inside the duct and headed toward the open door. Peaking into the hallway he saw no one, but stayed on the ceiling just to be on the safe side. People rarely looked up.

It took awhile to find a directory, but he finally located one near a set of elevators. He had to take an elevator back up two stories, to the penthouse offices where Fisk kept his desk. The elevator was fast and noiseless, and when the doors opened, he was already half-way out before he saw two men in business suits coming straight down the hall toward him. Moving fast, he flattened himself into an upper corner as the men stepped inside. Teeth gritted, Spider-Man stopped moving and tried to stop breathing. _What kind of executive comes to the office on Sunday?_ he thought grumpily. The two men didn't speak as the elevator descended all the way to the lobby level, appearing bored. Neither of them glanced around or up before the car came to a stop and the doors swished open.

As they left, he sagged a little with relief. Cautiously, he reached a red-gloved hand down to press the top button and stayed, flustered, upside down until the elevator had risen all forty stories again and stopped on the right floor. Craning his head out the top of the elevator, he checked both ways and then crawled onto the ceiling on tip-toes and tip-fingers.

Fisk's office was a wide, luxurious suite occupying the entire west side of the building. The double doors at the entrance were open, and Spider-Man realized immediately that the rooms were occupied. Silently, moving now with the excitement of a hunter, Spider-Man found a vantage point in a shadowy corner of the reception room with a sight-line through to the conference room. Six men were seated around a table. Four were nondescript men wearing suits and serious expressions, looking like a casting director's idea of board members. The other two men were something else entirely. One was a huge man dressed in white and diamonds, a heavy diamond-topped cane laid on the table in front of him. Sitting across from him at the foot of the table was a thin man covered head to foot in a rustling gold cape. Under his mask, Spidey felt his eyebrows rise. If illegal activities were going on here, those two were dressed for it.

"—which makes the Consensus Project ready for operation in two weeks," the huge man at the head of the table said in a booming voice. "At this point, all obstacles have been taken care of except one. With the elimination of political opposition, we have a clear path forward. Our sponsors were very impressed with your demonstration, sir," he nodded at the man in gold, "but one of our select band seems to have an objection."

"I thought your sponsors were all hand picked," the man replied in a soft, sneering voice that made the hair on the back of Spider-Man's neck stand up. "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"True. I accept responsibility for the mistake," Fisk answered calmly. "I had initially approached Mr. Osborn senior. When he passed on so unexpectedly, he left his affairs to his son..." Fisk shrugged. "The boy had the paperwork and expressed interest. Unfortunately, I misjudged his character. I trust the problem can be taken care of?"

"I've done more than I bargained for already," hissed the other. "The sponsors were unnecessary from the beginning—"

"The sponsors have paid your, shall we say, more than reasonable fees. An additional fee will, of course, be forthcoming."

Nothing but darkness was visible beneath the metallic hood, but the man seemed to reconsider. Finally, he said, "Done."

"Good. I have been completely satisfied with our partnership so far," Fisk said. "Your skills are very impressive." He smiled and it was not a pleasant expression. "Although, I wonder why you feel compelled to...approach your work indirectly. Traps, coming at your, ah, _business_ targets from behind..."

"Fair play is...for the playground," the soft voice was laughing, now. "A cheap shot usually hits the mark. You have been—annoyed, perhaps?—that I have insisted on my anonymity. Take that, then, as my name. Cheap Shot."

Fisk laughed, a deep rumble. "Good enough. I prefer having a label, even if I'm not allowed a name and a face. Live up to your chosen identity—no one needs to see us coming."

"You need have no concerns," Cheap Shot said. "My Consensus Project will start operation, on time and without any....snags." He stood in a swirl of gold. "You have lived up to your end of the bargain, and I assure you, you will have no cause to regret your investment." With a short bow, he walked from the room, past the unlit reception area and the empty secretary's desk. Spider-Man watched him go and began to move quietly after him. In the conference room, the meeting was still in progress.

One of the nondescript men broke his silence with a snort. "You do realize, don't you, that he's planning on turning against you when he gets a chance?" he said.

Fisk leaned back and waved a hand carelessly. "Naturally. I am not an idiot. He will find it difficult." Fingering the huge diamond in his cane, his eyes narrowed dangerously. "In this city, there are many people interested in...profitable enterprise. But all of it, _all_ of it, comes back to me in the end. I control the networks, I hire the enforcers, I collect the profits. In this city," he repeated, "_I_ am the Kingpin."

* * *

_A/N: Thank you for all the reviews! It makes my day. Skip the rest of this note if A/N's bug you._

_Midgewood58: Thank you for the criticism, I make corrections and I appreciate it.:)_

_Tinderblast__: Hooray, another Lamont fan!! The only place I've found him is Amazing Spider-Man #51-54. If anyone can tell me what other issues he's in—I can't afford to buy them all._

_To the reviewers who like Lamont: No, he's not an OC (see above) although I made up his family and introduced him to the movieverse. Thanks for letting me know he works here._

_Spidersrockmyworld__: Chapters just kind of end where they end, for me, but I'll try to update often. (Love your name.)_

_And to everyone: Thanks again._


	6. At the End of the Day

**_Chapter Six: At the End of the Day_**

Spider-Man raised his hands hopelessly, and let them drop. Desperately, he scanned the streets from the roof of Collins Towers for some sign of the thin assassin who called himself Cheap Shot. Late afternoon sunlight fell in mellow rays and a cool breeze swept over him. It would be a beautiful winter day, if his best friend hadn't become a killer's next target.

He had crept after Cheap Shot as he left the conference room, but the man had headed calmly to the elevators like any other businessman. Spider-Man could just slip through the doors after him unnoticed, make it down to the lobby and past the oblivious security guards, then follow him unseen out of the huge glass doors to the street—_Right. I may be the luckiest guy in the world, but all my luck is bad. Time for Plan B_. Turning, he had shot for the stairway as the elevator started down, slamming through the fire door. Ignoring both the stairs and the startled shouts coming from the hall he'd left behind, he leaped from rail to rail and slid between the zigzag flights as he headed straight up. It wasn't far; Fisk had the penthouse suite and the only thing above was a service cubbyhole and the access door. Alarms went off as he forced it open and bounced in one swift move from the entrance to a crouch on the edge of the roof. _Guy wearing gold, right? Easy to spot._ But the cheery sunshine refused to cooperate by glinting off a hood and cape.

By the time heavy footsteps sounded on the roof—about half a minute later—the web-slinger was long gone, scurrying across the walls around the skyscraper and flipping to neighboring buildings as he checked the surroundings. Convinced that Cheap Shot was nowhere in sight, he curled under an overhanging ledge across the street from the Towers to watch the front entrance, in case the man was taking his time coming out. He waited nearly an hour while the sun set and the streetlights came on, occasionally checking the service door, before giving up. It occurred to him that the assassin had the same advantage he did; take off the costume, and what was left to recognize? Several people had passed in and out of the building during his vigil, and any one of them might be hiding an eerie voice and a murderous heart.

Fisk, the Kingpin of crime, was thoroughly disturbed by the unexplained intruder, judging by the security guards still wandering the roof of the Towers trying to look effective. It made Spider-Man uneasy, but he'd left no definite signs there, like a web, and no one had seen him. There would be no 'Spider-Man Robs Executive Suite' headline in the papers tomorrow. More importantly, however alarmed Fisk might be, a cool-headed crime lord was unlikely to call off a hit because he'd been spooked. Harry was in danger.

Ten minutes later, Spider-Man landed gently on the balcony outside Norman Osborn's study. He still didn't think of it as Harry's study and doubted he ever would. Quietly, thankful for the gothic architecture which left dark shadows close to the french doors, Spider-Man leaned forward to peer into the lighted room. Dark green walls decorated with exotic tribal masks dominated the enormous space and reminded him instantly of the fractured, evil soul that had once lived here. A trace of fear slid through him until he spotted Harry, breathing regularly, but looking small and out-of-place sitting behind his father's desk. File folders and something that looked like newspaper clippings were scattered over the top, along with an empty cut-crystal glass. _Still alive, thank God._

_OK, now what?_ He could stay here and watch, but for how long? He had no idea how much time Cheap Shot needed to make his plans and go into action. Spider-Man was reasonably sure his spider-sense would give him enough time to rescue Harry from any booby-trap or sneak attack as long as he was nearby, but his gifts didn't include endless endurance or the ability to be in two places at once. Besides, spying on his best friend was on the creepy side of things.

Of course, Harry was wealthy enough to afford round-the-clock protection, if he knew he needed it. Whatever his reaction to Fisk's mysterious proposal had been, had he realized that he was placing himself in danger? Probably not. Maybe he could go in and restrain Harry, make him listen, get past his father issues long enough to warn him. _About as likely as the lead singer from Nickleback having a healthy relationship._ Strike that. _C'mon,_ he told himself, _you're supposed to be smart. Think of something..._

As Spider-Man hovered indecisively on the balcony, the desk phone rang shrilly, making him jump. Harry picked it up and leaned back in his chair, bringing him within a few feet of his position. His voice was clear, although muted by the windowpanes. "Oh, hi MJ."

Preparing to back up and let Harry have his conversation in private, Spider-Man froze. _MJ? I didn't know they were still speaking to each other._

"No, I haven't seen him today," Harry went on. "No, I don't...what's the..." He paused and listened. "How bad is she? Do you know what's wrong yet?" Harry sat up abruptly, and Spider-Man pressed closer to the window, trying to hear. "Well, if I see him I'll let him know, of course. Is she in the same hospital as last time?" _Aunt May._

"If there's anything I can do to help..." Harry paused. "Do you want me to come there?" Apparently the answer was yes, since Harry began stacking the papers on his desk and headed from the room as soon as the conversation ended. Before he reached the door, Spider-Man had crossed over the gabled roof of the mansion and was web-slinging his way across town. _Aunt May._

* * *

Joshua Young paused at the door of the low-rent apartment, reaching beneath his cape to find his key. The hall smelled like cat and stale food, and the neighbors were noisy, but he was content. The body was unimportant; money was better spent on higher matters than material comfort.

The cloak, for instance, had been expensive. Young's lip curled as he stepped into his room and hung it carefully by the door. After the services he had rendered the shadier organizations in Virginia, during his years in Washington, he might have expected more generous cooperation. Instead, he'd been forced to offer a great deal of money as well as apply judicious pressure. So many people's private lives were worth investigation...and his costly toys were certainly worth the aggravation of obtaining them.

Today, for instance. If Young allowed it, Fisk would have him followed, investigated. He knew Fisk didn't trust him any more than he trusted Fisk. The cloak, its metallic threads interwoven with tiny microprocessors, fiber optics, and sensors, was the cutting edge of military technology. On its most basic level it concealed his well-known face and gave him an imposing persona when dealing with those impressionable thugs. Fisk was stupidly unaware of its other function.

After the meeting at Collins Towers today, Young had simply waited until he was out of sight of any of Fisk's cameras or guards and activated the network woven into the cloth before walking out. The cloak picked up light from all around him, refracting and reflecting it at the viewer, matching the color and form of his surroundings. The camouflage was nearly perfect, a thing of great beauty. Sudden movement could give him away, and an observer who knew what he was looking for might be able to spot the tell-tale blurring around his shape. Young was careful to keep his toys from being known or closely examined. Information was power.

Sitting down at the computer desk shoved into a corner of the threadbare room, Young turned on the power and prepared to search for information on Harry Osborn. The former senator was still musing over the classified technology being held by misguided military personnel. Combining computer technology with cloth, for instance, meant that doctors could give outpatients shirts capable of monitoring their vital signs and continuously transmitting the data to medical personnel. The elderly and the frail could have emergency help the instant it was needed without picking up a phone, without losing their privacy or dignity in their daily lives. Yet this technology was withheld for no better reason than military greed and paranoia.

Young's fingers tapped rapidly as he accessed files, both public and governmental, on Harold N. Osborn, and began to read, plans already spinning through his mind. In his heart, Young actually believed that his enthusiasm for the kill came from his righteous mission. He had tried, for long years of his life, to change the world by all the approved means. Winning votes, making speeches, drafting legislation. And still, the country floundered in dealing with poverty, inequity, racism, crime, religious strife, environmental damage. No, the good fight was a waste of time. Now, every blow he struck would be below the belt. Cheap shots, indeed. Forget Washington; it was time to take the only practical approach, to unite the hearts and minds of the American people to guide the country truly.

People like Osborn, Councilor Huey, those obstructive idiots at the school—they stood in the way. Like enemy soldiers, they had to be cut down. Osborn was despicable; a useless, idle inheritor of wealth produced by others. Pity it was too risky to walk up and stab him in the back. As a politician, Young had always wanted to try the literal version of that time-honored strategy. Smiling, Young brought a small, heavy iron box out from under his bed and worked the combination on the lock. Inside, several devices lay neatly in foam, waiting for him to choose. Running his fingers lovingly over each toy, Young discarded the one that sent out an electric impulse, instantly disrupting heart function and brain waves. He'd tested that at the school. Perhaps this one. Oh, yes.

* * *

"Peter!" Mary Jane stood up from beside the hospital bed and hugged him, hard. Taking only a moment to return the embrace, Peter moved over to Aunt May. Despite her welcoming smile, grief rose up from somewhere inside and stole the strength from his muscles to create a tight knot in his throat. He sank down weakly in the chair MJ had left empty.

"I only heard...what happened? Are you...how do you feel?" he asked numbly, reaching out to cover her hand with his own, careful to avoid the IV needle.

"Now don't fret so much, Peter," Aunt May said in a low whisper. Her skin was yellowish and the wrinkles on her face, crossed by an oxygen tube, were deeper and sharper than he thought they should be. Her hand felt very frail as she curled her fingers loosely around his. "I'm going to be fine." She closed her eyes, struggling to breathe, those few words visibly exhausting her.

Mary Jane had come up behind him, laying her hand on his shoulder. "She will, Peter. The doctor who was here earlier said she's just going to need time to recover, they're going to keep her under observation here for a few days." MJ's voice was soft and reassuring.

"But what happened?"

MJ squeezed his shoulder gently. "I went over to her house to say hi, and found her on the floor. I guess she...the doctor said something about...she didn't really have a heart attack, but a kind of seizure. Something about the reflexes that make your heart pump harder when you stand up slowing down as you get older? Anyway, she was sitting at the dining room table and stood up too quickly, and fainted because her heart wasn't getting enough blood to her brain. Or I think that's what he said." Her voice shook on the last few words.

Looking away from Aunt May, who still had her eyes closed, Peter realized how frightened and tired MJ was. She had been here for hours, taking care of Aunt May, unable to reach anyone to help her, dealing with all the questions and paperwork and uncertainty alone. Wordlessly, Peter stood up again and put his arms around her and held her for several endless moments. Stiff at first, she finally relaxed against him, slipping her hands around his waist and resting her face on his shoulder. He stroked her hair gently until she pulled away, wiping her eyes with the heel of her hand and ducking her head, embarrassed.

As they broke apart, Peter looked back down at his aunt, who had opened her eyes a fraction and was smiling at them again. Still shocked by how brittle and old she appeared, he tried to take in what MJ had said. She didn't look all right; she looked worse than when the Green Goblin had attacked. Adrenalin filled his blood, fear for her making his hands tremble slightly, needing to do something, anything, to help her, to make her better. But he hadn't even been there to take her to the hospital, take care of her. And there was no enemy here to fight except time and age. Peter wasn't used to feeling so helpless, not anymore.

There was a soft knock at the door. Harry leaned into the room, looking concerned. "Hi. Oh, you got ahold of Peter, good...how is she?"

"Doing OK," MJ said. "We probably should let her rest..." Peter felt another wave of guilt hit him. Fat lot of use he was, arriving just in time to spend a minute or two saying hello, after the crisis was under control. He moved out with Harry and MJ, and the three young people stood uncomfortably in the corridor.

"Well, I...I should be getting, um, I called in to work but it's late..." MJ trailed off and Peter reached out and hugged her again.

"Go home. Thank you so much, I don't know how to thank you for being there for her..." Peter backed off and stuck his hands in his back pockets, suddenly shy, and added, "You, you've done so much. Go home, I'll call you."

"Yeah, OK. Call me, tiger," MJ looked embarrassed but pleased. Nodding a little to Harry, she walked off down the long white corridor, both boys watching her go. Peter was still staring when his friend spoke and he jumped.

"Peter, I want you to listen to me. You're not going back to that god-awful dump tonight. You're staying with me, you're going to have one of my cars to get where you need to be, some decent food and a decent place to sleep. Got it?" Harry's expression left no room for argument. Not that Peter was about to offer one. He'd forgotten all about Harry's situation this past hour. As they went in to tell Aunt May they were leaving and gave contact information to the nurses' desk, he decided this was the best solution for now—he would have a better chance of stopping any attack if he was actually in the house. Not to mention that having someone else to take care of the little details of life, like shopping for food and doing the laundry, really would make things easier for now. As he climbed into Harry's chauffer-driven car, he felt more tired than he'd thought possible.

* * *

_Just when you think things can't get worse..._Lamont lit a cigarette. He'd spent the afternoon filling out paperwork, talking to bereaved relatives of the victims, many of whom had gotten past 'denial' and moved right into the 'anger' part of the grieving process, and trying to find a minute or two to sort through reports and background checks while organizing the investigation with the help of the two officers that NYPD decided were enough to handle a piddling little killing spree.

Now he was sitting on his butt outside his divisional chief's door until Spence decided to notice he was here. Lamont had no idea why he'd been called in, but it couldn't be good. Talking to the boss was never good. When you weren't getting chewed out, you were getting all kinds of crap shoved at you by clueless mooks who spent their days behind a desk. He stubbed out the cigarette.

"Detective Lamont, sorry to keep you waiting," Divisional Chief Spence said, holding the door to his office open. He was a black man with a quiet, friendly voice, some inches shorter than the grey-haired veteran detective. Nodding to the chair in front of his desk, he sat down and tapped the folder in front of him. "Is there any information on cause of death for the victims at P.S. 134?" Lamont shook his head, and Spence went on. "I see you've requested assignment to the Huey case. What grounds do you have to connect it to the school killings?"

Lamont went over the possible connection, keeping it short and professional. With some hesitation, he added that an informant had tipped him off to further evidence linking the PTA group at P.S. 134 and the Councilman. Spence frowned.

"It sounds...flimsy, detective. You are creating a case involving a highly political issue—the new school curriculum—and one of New York's most influential citizens, Wilson Fisk. And," he coughed politely, "I can't see that there's enough evidence to justify the kind of uproar this could cause." Lamont kept his expression stony and blank, refusing to start defending his investigation. After a pause, Spence continued. "Who is the informant? How reliable has he proved in the past?"

_I knew I should've kept my mouth shut._ "Spider-Man," he said shortly, feeling ridiculous.

Spence's eyebrows rose. "I see." There was another disapproving pause. "You've been covering the various...spider sightings over the past six months as well, haven't you?" His voice still friendly, he said, "Wouldn't you consider it unethical, perhaps, to take the suspect from one investigation into your confidence on another?"

_Sanctimonious little..._ "Sir, no information was given to him."

Spence folded his hands neatly across the front of his suit. "Hmm." Lamont consciously kept from fidgeting, and wished he could go home. _Wonder what Mindy made for dinner._ "Detective Lamont, your case-closure rate is outstanding, although your personnel record is, shall we say, uneven." He smiled. "Apparently, you don't tolerate fools gladly."

Growing serious again, he went on, "Over the past few months, the NYPD has been considering implementation of a new program, one aimed at meeting the challenges presented by non-human perpetrators such as Spider-Man and the Green Goblin. I have brought your record to the committee's attention, and it has been decided that you will be transferred to head the new Paranormal Division, along with what supporting personnel can be spared. You appear to be able to deal with the unknown without becoming intimidated and your record fully justifies your appointment as a Divisional Head, although you will still be reporting to me."

Lamont was speechless. _You have got to be kidding me._ "Sir, I..."

"The Huey case will be assigned to you, as requested. Be aware that your performance in your new position will be closely monitored, at first, and that publicly and politically embarrassing the department would be, well, frowned on." Spence smiled. "And apprehension of Spider-Man, despite his supporters, would be a great boost for our public relations."

_Assigning me to deal with the wackos permanently. Please, let this be a nightmare._

"Thank you for coming in, detective. Why don't you go home and let your wife know about your promotion," Spence rose to shake hands, still friendly.

Lamont left in a daze.__


	7. Failing Grade

**_Chapter Seven: Failing Grade_**

Peter woke up and found himself out of bed, crouched to meet an attack.  The Osborn mansion was silent and dark as he burst out of his room and sped lightly through the halls.  He barely broke stride to check Harry's room—empty—before vaulting over the hall landing and heading to the other side of the house, where he'd left Harry in his father's study two hours earlier.  As fast as he was moving, his spider-sense was pushing him to go faster and he reached the study door convinced that he was too late.

The day had been long and tense.  Peter moved through his classes on automatic pilot, his brain struggling with assassins and plots, his heart over at Queen's Mercy hospital.  School was unreal, meaningless.  He listened to his professors lecture from behind a solid wall of worry.

Later, he had visited Aunt May at the hospital for a short fifteen minutes.  She was glad to see him but tired quickly, smiling and nodding when he said it was time to go instead of protesting.  Peter spent most of the afternoon trying to track down a doctor to update him on her condition, but ended up doing nothing more than leaving messages with several office secretaries.  He called Aunt May after dinner, woke her up to wish her good night and reassure her he would be by to see her in the morning.

While Peter tried to concentrate on his homework that evening, sitting uneasily in the green study, Harry sat at the desk and carefully sorted his news clippings into file folders, occasionally breaking into a fierce "Ha!" and scribbling wildly with a red pen.  Peter was close enough, now, to see that they were all articles on Spider-Man, including many of his own pictures heading the _Daily Bugle_'s skewed reporting.  Harry didn't say anything to Peter about them, but often looked up meaningfully at his best friend, tapping his finger thoughtfully on his lips before going back to his obsession.

By the time Peter went to bed his head was pounding and his back was knotted.  He had pushed the window open, leaning his head against the screen with the cold night air rushing into the overheated room.  The temptation to get out there, to stretch his tight muscles in flight, swamped him with longing.  Harry would be safe for an hour or two, right?  Slowly, he had pushed the window back down and gotten into his pajamas rather than his costume.

Now, he abruptly threw the study door open, leaping into the room.  Harry, still seated behind the polished desk, stared at him, frozen with a glass in his hand.  Peter became conscious that he'd just burst in like the house was on fire, with bare feet, wearing sweats and a loose t-shirt.  Defensively, he crossed his arms over his chest and said intelligently, "Ah...um..."

Harry reacted by violently shoving himself to his feet, dropping his glass which rolled unbroken on the thick carpet, filling the room with the smell of whisky.  He shoved the palms of his hands into his temples, a thin squeal coming from his mouth, before falling to the carpet behind the desk.

Peter, gaping, finally realized that the attack had come and jumped forward to help his friend.  Harry was now curled into a ball, hitting himself repeatedly on the head, that unnerving squeal getting higher and sounding less and less human.  Confused, Peter pulled at him, shouting his name.

Holding Harry in place as he began to thrash and convulse, Peter fought the danger sense filling his head with panic and tried to figure out what to do.  The room started to swim and twist around him, Harry's shape growing huge and the desk beside him shrinking.  The leather chair Harry had knocked over when he stood up started to slide limply away over the floor, which was swelling and dropping like ocean waves.  Peter heard a harsh sound coming from his own throat as the disorientation pulled him in.

Peter's eyes shut and he stopped thinking at all.  Instantly, his arachnid instincts took control.  Blindly, he leaped from the floor to the balcony doors, running all out down the wall toward the street below.  Ten feet from the ground, he bounced out from the building, tucking his knees neatly into his chest and spinning head-over-heels across the space separating him from the opposite wall.  If he had opened his eyes, he might have hesitated, because there was nothing unusual visible there, but his eyelids were still squeezed shut and his brain still out of gear.  His body straightened at exactly the right moment and his right foot came down solidly on a hand holding a small black box with several gleaming switches and a dial.  As the box splintered under his heel, Peter's mind cleared.  He opened his eyes as he swung an elbow sideways against a shadow that had an odd texture to it and was whimpering.  The shape falling to the pavement hardly seemed to exist in the darkness, but Peter bent over it and groped until he had a handful of cloth.  Yanking the cape off with a magician's flourish, he revealed a tall thin man with dark skin lying unconscious in the gutter.  His hand, with his fingers sticking out at odd angles, was next to a flattened black box about the size of a deck of cards.

Shaking, Peter gazed blankly at Cheap Shot.  It took him a few seconds to put together what had just happened, and when he did, fresh fear sank into his gut.  _How did I do that?  I don't even remember getting down here..._Peter's mouth was dry.  It was one thing to use his gifts, another for his gifts to use him.  _As if the spider was someone else, some part of me I don't really know..._He took a deep breath.  His head was pounding, and the whole bizarre experience had left him off-balance.  It was like the moment after a vivid dream, feeling imagined passions recede as he slowly groped for reality.  Suddenly, he remembered Harry.  With a start, he dropped the cape and jumped effortlessly out and up three stories, crawling quickly up to the balcony.

Inside, he saw Harry still curled on the floor, silent and unmoving.  Peter checked his pulse, then sighed in relief to find it steady if a little fast.  Leaving his friend in the study, he ran downstairs and searched the long halls until he found the door to the servants' section of the house.  Inside he came across the houseman, Bernard, lying in his bedclothes on the hall floor.  The two live-in cleaning ladies were also out cold, one tangled up in her sheets on the floor by her bed, and one still dressed and huddled in an armchair in front of her television.  Each one had a strong pulse, but as Peter went from one collapsed person to the next his growing anger wiped out the fear of a few minutes before.  _What was the range of that thing?  Was he willing to kill anyone nearby?_  He couldn't understand how anyone could be so callous.  It was horrifying.

Spotting a phone on a low table, Peter dialed 9-1-1, reporting the address and giving the operator what little information he had on the problem—four, uh, five people at this address had suffered severe hallucinations, started convulsing and then passed out.  He hung up as soon as he finished, without giving his name.  He needed to go back up to the study.  He had no idea how long it would be before Harry and the others woke up, and he should be in the last place Harry saw him, mimicking the same symptoms.

Biting his lip, Peter remembered that he'd left Cheap Shot unconscious but unsecured.  _Idiot_.  _If he recovers he can just walk off_.  He'd must have been more shaken than he'd thought, or he would have webbed him down automatically.  He could go back now, take a few seconds to pin him down and return to the study.

Then he had to wait until the cops came, pray they noticed Cheap Shot lying in a back street, and hope like crazy they figured out the connection between the man with the smashed device and the strange illness in the Osborn mansion—because as Peter Parker, he couldn't say a thing without raising suspicions.  Undecided, he stared at the phone.  _Or I could take him to Lamont...but if I'm not here when the ambulances get here...He could have killed everyone in the house._  Sprinting back upstairs, Peter had his costume on and was out the balcony doors again within seconds.

Spider-Man reached Cheap Shot and tucked him under one arm.  His headache intensified as he bent over to pick up the remains of the disorienting device.  The pain made him angrier.  Not caring much if his passenger got bounced around, he headed for the Ninth Precinct.

* * *

"You get it, Matt," Mindy muttered, turning over and wrapping one arm over her head.  Lamont forced himself to swing his feet over the side of the bed and tried to sound alert as he growled "Lamont" into the receiver.

Half an hour later, he drove up to the Precinct doors, got out of the car and stood staring at a human being fully cocooned in silvery webbing hanging from the eaves.  Above, a skittering movement announced Spider-Man's presence.  Lamont thought he looked sinister, perched head down in the dark over his prey.  Several uniformed cops standing around on the sidewalk greeted the detective with relief.

"Care to explain this, buddy?"  Lamont called up to the vigilante.  Spider-Man moved closer to ground level and spoke, and Lamont decided he hadn't been misreading his body language.  The web-head was _mad_.  You could hear it in his voice.

"I brought you an early Christmas present, Detective," Spider-Man said.  "I thought you'd appreciate something unique."

"Unique, right.  Is he dead?"

Spider-Man pulled his head back sharply.  "Of course not."

"Just thought I'd ask.  What's the deal?"

Spider-Man began his explanation with an overheard conversation at Wilson Fisk's office, and went on to say he had been keeping watch over Osborn.  He wound up with a description of Cheap Shot's attack.  Before he finished, Lamont snapped at one of the fascinated officers to dispatch a couple of units to the Osborn mansion.

"I went over Osborn before I got here, and did a quick check of the rest of the household.  Everyone out cold.  I called the paramedics in to the mansion, but you might want to knock on a few neighbors' doors.  Apparently this...apparently he didn't give a damn who he hurt, as long as he got Osborn."  Spider-Man hid his expression, but his voice was rough.  Lamont told a second officer to relay the information, then deliberately took out a cigarette and took his time lighting it before turning back to face the wall-crawler.

"So, anyone but you see this guy, witness this?"

"I told you.  The thing knocked everyone out.  Guess I'm just, well, kinda resistant," Spider-Man shifted uncomfortably on the wall.  "It gave me a killer headache, though."

"And hanging upside down like that doesn't make it worse?"

"Oh come on, can we focus here?"  Spider-Man hopped on top of a nearby post office box and sat on his heels.  "Just make sure this guy gets put away."

"No can do, buddy."  Lamont said blandly.  "Not unless you're here to tell me you're willing to press charges and come in as a witness.  I'll need your name, address, phone number..."

"Give me a break!  Cheap Shot just assaulted who knows how many people, and you wanna use it as an opportunity to get to me?" Spider-Man shouted.  "Check your priorities, _buddy_—"

"Hold on right there."  Tired, frustrated, and resentful, Lamont lost his grip on his temper.  He stubbed out his cigarette and walked over to get right into the vigilante's face—well, mask.  "In this country?  We have this little thing called the right to face your accuser.  You think cops don't want to be doing their job?  Go to hell.  I've spent the last few days talking to widowed husbands, wives, kids that aren't going to see their moms ever again." Lamont jabbed his finger into Spider-Man's chest.  "What are you thinking, huh?  That we can arrest someone just because you say so?" Jab.  "When you're not willing to say it in court?"  Jab.  "Either give me evidence that this mook's responsible for the attempted murder—_any_ murder—or get him down."  He backed off a step and set his hands on his hips, pushing his suit coat back, and glared into Spider-Man's shiny white eyepieces.

Lamont waited for him to answer.  He heard his heart thud in his ears until, with an inhumanly quick movement, Spider-Man sprang to the wall over Cheap Shot, broke the web-line holding him up, and lowered the wrapped and motionless form to the sidewalk.  A few hard yanks ripped the webbing away from his body, and then Spider-Man was gone, so fast that Lamont wasn't even certain which direction he took.  Relaxing, he became aware he'd been holding his breath.

"All right, we need a paramedic here to look over this guy," Lamont announced.  The three officers huddled near the precinct door didn't move.  "I mean now, folks," he snapped.  The officer who'd gone to call emergency services to the Osborn mansion went into the station again.  The other two hurried forward to clear broken webs away from the former prisoner and lay him out more comfortably.  Lamont looked down at him, frowning.  His face was familiar, but he couldn't think from where...

"Hey, Detective?"  One of the uniformed cops had come up to him.  Lamont glanced at his name tag.  "What, Olsen?" he said, irritated.

"Just wanted to say...I mean, that guy can throw buses around, ya know?  You really got _guts_, telling him where to get off."  Olsen sounded admiring.

Lamont gave the officer his best poker face until Olsen dropped his eyes and coughed nervously.  "Get this mook's ID while he's not objecting.  I want to know who he is."

"You got it."  The embarrassed officer practically ran back over to Cheap Shot.


	8. The Morning After

**_A/N:_**_  I have revised and reposted Chapter 7 to correct some problems (thank you, Tinderblast).  It doesn't affect the plot, so you don't **have** to re-read it to get this Chapter._

****

**_Chapter Eight: The Morning After_**

"You fuss too much, dear," Aunt May said, smiling and lowering herself into the armchair next to the hospital bed.  "I'm much happier sitting up and doing something.  I'm sure lying there fretting doesn't do me any good."  She pulled her knitting to her and dumped the light blue yarn into her lap.

Peter, sitting on the other side of the bed, grinned at her, exasperated but sympathetic.  "I know it's boring, but it's only been a couple of days.  The doctor said to rest..."

"Humph.  I've had this body for over sixty years, young man, and I know it better than the doctor does."  Peter had to admit she looked better, minus the oxygen tube, with her hair neatly brushed and wearing the quilted robe he'd brought her from home.  The familiar click of her knitting needles was soothing.

"Well, don't push yourself too—"

"Hi, guys."  He turned to see Mary Jane, wearing her ugly orangey-red waitress uniform, standing in the doorway.  "Aunt May!  You look fantastic."  The warmth of her smile eased into Peter.

"Thank you, Mary Jane."  Aunt May counted her stitches under her breath and went on, "It is so nice for you to visit me, come in, dear."

MJ dropped her coat on the bedside table and bent over to kiss Aunt May's cheek.  Then she looked over at Peter.  "Are you OK?  I saw on the news this morning—"  Peter made frantic faces at her from behind Aunt May.  "—ah, that, we're going to have rain today."  Aunt May turned to look curiously at Peter as MJ grimaced apologetically at him from her other side.

"I, um, had a little cold, there," Peter explained, "but I'm fine, MJ.  Don't worry about the rain."  He managed to smile innocently at his aunt, but MJ was having trouble controlling a giggle.  It made her dimples show.  Aunt May regarded both of them tolerantly.

"Anyway," MJ said cheerfully, "I've got the early shift, so I've got to get going, but I wanted to see how you were doing."

"I hope it wasn't out of your way.  Peter, your first class isn't until ten, is it?  Maybe you could escort Mary Jane to work," Aunt May was hiding a smile now, too.

"Oh, I—"

"That'd be great, Pete, there was something I wanted to talk to you about, anyway—well, if it's not too much of a hassle," she added apologetically.  As clearly as if MJ came with subtitles, Peter could read her thoughts; she wanted him to come with her, but she was afraid of asking him for his time, afraid she was being pushy.  He was ashamed of himself for treating her so badly she felt like asking him to talk to her was hassling him.

"I'd love to, MJ, it's on my way," Peter said firmly.  He hugged Aunt May and gathered his backpack, following MJ out the door and down to the elevators.

"Great acting, Red," Peter teased, as they walked down the hall.  "Can't you keep a straight face?"

Mary Jane laughed.  "Sorry, I guess you didn't want to worry your aunt with it, but—what happened last night?  It was all over the news..."

Peter frowned at the linoleum as they waited for the elevator, wishing his mind was functioning better.  He'd never gotten back to bed the night before, and although he needed far less sleep than most people, he had been going non-stop under stress for three days and the strain showed. The morning news had reawakened his anger and horror.  Seventeen people in the neighborhood had been treated for what the media was calling 'mystery mass hallucination'.  The police had not established a cause or found a suspect at this time.  Also, one of the cops at Lamont's precinct had talked to the press, because an 'anonymous source' had credited Spider-Man with being at the scene and beating up a on-looker 'who preferred to remain unnamed'.  All in all, the night before had been a complete fiasco.

He was furious with Cheap Shot, furious with Lamont, and most of all, furious with himself.

Haltingly, concentrating hard to keep his story straight, Peter told MJ his short official version of the night's events.

His main worry, that his disappearance from the scene would be noticed and commented on, turned out to be groundless.  With all the confusion and bustle in the mansion, it had been surprisingly easy to slip back in through a window, make his way up to his room to slide out of his costume and into his sweats, and then wander into the main hall like he'd just come to his senses.  Emergency personnel had been clustered around Harry and the three servants.  It appeared that no one had remembered the guest, and Peter was amused at how glad he was to be overlooked.

After getting his eyes examined and answering a few basic questions—yes, he knew who the president was, he knew his middle name, yes, he had a headache—he was given a couple of extra-strength painkillers and ignored.  Harry was commanding most of the attention, groaning loudly and pitifully declaring that he was "all right, really," before swaying on his feet and having to be put to bed.  When Peter said he'd been in his room the entire time, no one questioned it.  Amazingly enough, it looked like Peter was getting away with his extended absence from the scene.

"So, it's kind of a mystery—I don't remember much of what happened..."

MJ nodded thoughtfully.  They reached the street and headed toward the bus stop.  "I heard—a couple of people said Spider-Man was there," she said.

"Um, I wouldn't know, I was out like a light," Peter ducked his head sheepishly.

"Too bad.  You take pictures of him, don't you?"  MJ's voice was over-casual and she was deliberately not meeting Peter's eyes.

_None lately...and my bank account shows it,_ Peter thought.  "Yeah, I...have taken a few," he said cautiously.

"Ah.  Yeah, you told me you kind of know him."  MJ stuck her hands in her coat pockets and nonchalantly glanced down the street for the bus.  _All right, what's up?_ Peter's eyes narrowed.  _You're batting zero with the acting today, MJ._

Pulling her shoulders back, Mary Jane turned to look straight into Peter's eyes.  "I don't believe he did anything wrong, no matter what they say in the papers.  And I don't believe he killed Norman Osborn, whatever Harry says," she said, slowly and firmly.  "I think," she continued, blushing redder than her hair, "that he is...amazing.  Truly amazing.  A hero."  MJ was still staring right at him.  They were standing only inches apart, and he could see the tiny flecks of brown in her green eyes.  Her faith in him was so complete, it felt like she was brushing cobwebs of anger and guilt away from him.  "I've always wished I could see him again," she finished softly.

_Wait a minute..._MJ had never told Peter Parker about kissing Spider-Man in the rain, but his own memory of that night was burned into him.  _She wants to see...Spider-Man again?  She asked about me knowing him...Does she want me to tell her how to find him?_  Peter wanted MJ to move on and get over him, really, he knew he did...but she'd had a crush on ol' Spidey first, and she wasn't—_I mean, aside from the absolute insanity of being jealous of yourself,_ Peter thought incoherently, _this is just too complicated._

"Oh, well, you know, it's...it's not like I have his address or anything," Peter stammered.  "It's, he's pretty hard to track down."

MJ tilted her head to one side and watched him reflectively.  The bus pulled up at that moment and Peter motioned for her to climb on, thankful for the distraction.  After they got settled, MJ spoke again.  "Just so you know, tiger, you can trust me," she said, her voice quiet and...disappointed?

_Great, now she thinks I don't trust her enough to let her know how to reach Spider-Man._  Peter cast about for a change of subject.  "What was it you wanted to talk to me about, anyway?" he asked.

Blinking, MJ smiled uncertainly.  "Oh, that.  I, um, hey, I wanted to ask you—" MJ paused, blushing, "—well, I know most people bring flowers or whatever when someone is sick, but I thought," taking a breath she rushed on, "that it might be more useful if I went in and cleaned up Aunt May's house, you know, pick up and dust and make sure nothing in the kitchen's going bad.  You could let me in...well, it's probably a stupid idea," she finished.

Peter didn't move for a few seconds, his face serious.  Then he leaned over, and kissed MJ gently on the cheek.  "I think it's a great idea."

Mary Jane put her hand over his, and smiled.

* * *

Peter shuffled unwillingly into his ten o'clock class, wishing he had the homework finished.  He tried half-heartedly to pay attention to the teacher, but Cheap Shot's continuing threat and his conversation with Mary Jane overshadowed the importance of convergent geometric series.  Besides, he could do the math with his eyes closed; this requirement was such a waste of his time.

The one thing he had saved from the wreckage was the tiny black box that had caused disorientation and distress in a block-wide radius.  Peter had bundled the cloak in with Cheap Shot while webbing him up, but he had stuck the box into the small pocket at his waist—and in his huffy flight from the precinct, he had taken it with him.  It was smashed, of course, but the components were identifiable.  Peter thought it over and came to a decision.

He had no trouble finding Dr. Althea Bell, the dean of the engineering department.  Peter rapped gently on her office door, and saw a middle-aged, heavy-set woman with short brown hair and glasses working at her desk.  At his knock, she looked at him inquiringly.

"I'm sorry to interrupt you.  I had a question about, um, something I found in the trash."  She seemed ready to dismiss him when he set the box on her desk.  Her expression changed rapidly.  "It looked, well, different, but I electronics aren't really my thing..."

"Your thing, Mr., um—?" she repeated dubiously then hurried on, excited.  "Just look—this is a device for transmitting electromagnetic energy, but at very unusual frequencies, if the indications on this dial are—hmm."  Dr. Bell sorted through the pieces.  "See, this would be just over the ultraviolet range,—but, oooh look!  That would modify it entirely...I don't think you'd find these wavelengths occurring naturally—" by this time Dr. Bell was looking at the device the same way MJ looked at fashion magazines.  "It might actually have worked before it was broken, amazing that someone threw this away, it's clearly valuable experimental technology.  Hmm.  I think—you know, Mr.—"

"Oh yeah, I'm Peter Parker—"

"Right, Parker, I think I could make this work again.  Come on over, the equipment I need is in the second lab—"  Dr. Bell stepped briskly out the door past Peter's protests and headed down the hall at a trot.  Peter caught up to her.

"Are you sure we should just start it up?" he said anxiously.  "I don't think—"

"Absolutely, Parker, how else can we see if it's salvageable?"  Dr. Bell reached the room she wanted and began rummaging through a cupboard on the wall.  Peter wondered how he'd lost control of the conversation.

He decided to try again.  "Hey, I found it in the neighborhood of the Osborn place, I thought maybe—"  A loud thump interrupted him as Dr. Bell set down a jumble of computer boards, connections, meters and dials.  She raised her eyebrows at him.  "Where all those people went nuts last night?  It could be connected, yes, now that's an idea!  Yes, we'll have to test that," she said.

Peter mentally threw up his hands in defeat and decided to just smash the thing again if the nutty professor started broadcasting hallucinogenic electromagnetic waves.  The plump, motherly woman hummed happily as she made connections, twisting wires together and peering at the needles bouncing up and down on various indicators.  "Yes, yes, you're right, um—Parker?  Yes, definitely, these frequencies could have an effect on the human brain.  In fact, it might be designed to interact with the brain as a wave guide...See here?  Hmm."  She flipped a switch on the original device—now hooked up to a computer board and a battery—and turned the dial.  Watching the reaction on her indicators, she seemed to have forgotten about the student standing beside her.  Peter felt an odd sensation, like the inside of his head was itching.

"Dr. Bell?  What does it do, exactly?"

Dr. Bell straightened up and faced him.  "It creates electromagnetic waves at high frequencies.  I'm not sure how the original wave guide worked—it's entirely destroyed—but if the dial is to believed, it had a considerable range."

"And what effect would it have?  In general, and on people?"

"In general?  No idea, although I can think of practical applications...but there are some hazards.  See here," she pointed at the dial, "it's at one of it's lowest settings, slightly higher than ultraviolet, probably shouldn't stay exposed to it for too long, but it's harmless for short periods."

_Harmless?  This itch is driving me crazy._  Dr. Bell gave him an odd look as he rubbed at his head and he dropped his hand.

"I doubt it would have any measurable effect for some time.  We can even turn it up slightly," she did so, "and still be well within the safe range."  The itch faded, but his awareness of the device became even stronger, like a finger tapping for attention inside the base of his skull.  In a way, the sensation was much like his spider-sense, although without giving him any urgent feeling of impending danger.  "But, I wouldn't risk it at any higher setting without shielding and equipment to measure the output.  I think this may have been designed to transmit on a level perceptible to human beings.  Higher frequencies could cause extreme suggestibility, hallucinations, possibly hemorrhaging, and high enough exposure for any period of time could cause death," she added cheerfully.

"Ah.  Well, thank you, Dr. Bell, that's very helpful.  I'll, um, be very careful with it—" Peter reached out and started untangling the box.

"What?" Dr. Bell was shocked and suspicious.  "Aren't you leaving it here?  There are many more tests that need to be done, like I said, with the right equipment, and I really should consult Dr. Polanski—you can't be serious."

Peter hastened to calm her down.  "It's just that, if it's like you say, then the police will want it.  There's a whole investigation going on, with what happened last night.  It, it could be evidence—if they return it to me, I'll bring it right back."

It took a lot of fast talking and several mentions of the police to get the single-minded woman to give up her prize, but Peter eventually walked out of the lab with the box safely in his backpack.  This was definitely a weapon, but still useless as evidence—Peter had nothing to connect it with Cheap Shot.

_Interesting, that I could 'hear' it with my spider-sense, _he mused.  _That might be useful someday._

Head down, thinking hard, Peter dimly heard Dr. Connors calling his name.  Blinking up at the disabled professor, Peter smiled uncertainly as Connors frowned at him.  _I didn't miss a class, did I?_

"How's the essay coming, Parker?" Connors said curtly.

_Essay.  What essay?_  It took him a heartbeat to remember what he was talking about.  _Oh man, I forgot the scholarship application._  "Uh, it's kinda slow, I've...um, well I've scrapped my first try, I'm rewriting it."  _I am such a lousy liar._

Connors looked at the floor for a few moments and then spoke quietly.  "Listen, Peter, this is an important opportunity.  You need to think about your life, where you want to go with it.  Intelligence isn't enough.  The world's full of intelligent losers."  Connors looked Peter in the eye.  "Don't be one of them."

As his advisor walked off, Peter sighed with irritation.  His life was like one of those acts where the performer ran around spinning dozens of plates on poles, running madly from plate to plate to keep each one rotating in balanced motion.  He wondered glumly what would happen when he couldn't keep up any longer.

* * *

**_A/N:_**_  Thank you to everyone who reviewed!  If you're still with me, please hit the button and let me know, because the reviews keep me writing._


	9. Suspicions

**_A/N:_**_ My husband was bitten by a brown recluse spider last week. No super-powers yet, but we're still hoping._

****

**_Chapter Nine: Suspicions_**

He left the university, intending to go straight back to Harry's house and start on his essay. The winter sky began pelting the city with icy rain while he was in the Engineering department, and Peter joined the line waiting for the bus with less regret than usual; a warm, dry bus sounded more appealing than facing the endless wind rushing through the man-made canyons of New York while soaking wet, wearing spandex.

The driving rain reduced visibility and left the oil-stained streets slick. Peter rested his head against the cool glass of the window and peered into the grey gloom, watching shiny wet taxis snarl and dart around slower traffic. Looking down a cross-street, he saw a taxi dash across an intersection against the light. Beyond it, he noticed the headlights of an oncoming school bus, also gleaming washed-yellow in the dimness. Peter laid a hand on the window and leaned forward, holding his breath. The taxi blocked the school bus's path, and it braked and skidded sideways, swaying dangerously. Then Peter's bus moved on down the street, and his view of the accident was cut off by rows of shop fronts.

Urgently pushing his way through standing passengers to the front, Peter bounced impatiently on the balls of his feet until the next stop. Jumping down the steps, Peter ran for the nearest dark space between buildings, already pulling off his shirt. _OK, maybe the bus crashed, but maybe it didn't,_ he told himself. _It won't hurt to check, make sure there's nothing you can do to help._ He barely reached the shelter of the alley before leaping up the wall, counting on the dark afternoon and the curtain of rain to keep people from noticing anything odd. Reaching the roof, he bundled his street clothes together, shoved them into his backpack, and webbed it hurriedly against a duct. Spider-Man pulled his mask over his head and took off.

The wishful theory that the bus had avoided damage died as he saw the flash of rotating lights from edge of a roof overlooking the accident. A single police car was there. One uniformed cop, wearing a reflective orange vest, was lighting flares and waving traffic to a muddled stop. The overturned school bus lay across one side of the intersection, its tires still spinning feebly in the air. Spidey's throat closed in fear as he saw the tanker truck that had smashed the bus into a U-shape, crushing it over and down until the row of windows along the far side were only cracks. The tank had split, and the smell of gasoline was overpowering the smell of the rain. A second wet cop in a reflective vest was bent over, scanning the twisted wreckage. _Oh, God, it doesn't look like anyone could survive that._

Leaping off the rooftop to a streetlight, he clung easily to the slippery metal and pushed off to land on his feet by what remained of the bus's windshield. Through a narrow gap, he could see the bus driver, held upside-down in his seat by his safety belt. A trickle of blood ran down the old man's face and he wasn't moving. Behind him, Spider-Man could see movement and now that he was closer he could hear, thankfully, the high-pitched shouts and cries of children.

Moving quickly around the wreck, he spotted the truck driver groggily pushing at the driver's-side door of the tanker and swearing, blood on his face and hands. The safety glass in his windshield had shattered and fallen out, mostly in one piece, but the frame was tight against the bus and blocked by yellow metal. As Spider-Man reached out to grasp the buckled door, the cop at the scene moved into his path and rested a hand on his chest.

"Hold it, Spider-Man," she said, her dark hair plastered to her face by the rain. "We've got emergency personnel on the way..."

"That guy's panicking, and in shock, he could hurt himself. If I can get him out, I might be able to move the tanker away from the kids trapped inside," Spider-Man said as reasonably as he could manage, heroically restraining himself from simply shoving her out of the way. The shouts from the bus were getting louder, and he could her one of the kids sobbing hysterically.

Glancing over her shoulder at the truck driver, who was now screaming and banging on the immobile door, the hard-faced cop hesitated and then nodded sharply, stepping aside. His spider-sense was a constant warning buzz at the base of his neck. Spider-Man pulled the door out and off in one smooth movement and laid it carefully on the street. The next instant he caught the falling driver, carrying him quickly over to the sidewalk, where he lay moaning and cursing. Returning to the wreck, he bounded lightly up to balance on top of the bus. One of the kids screamed at the thump he made. Anxiously, he checked angles to make sure pushing the truck back wouldn't cause the bus to fall over, trying to see if the metal of the truck was interlocked with the bus. Gasoline was still streaming from the tank, diluting and streaking the puddles on the pavement.

Jumping back to the ground, he went back to the cop standing by the truck. "Looks OK, I think I can move it," he said curtly.

"If you can do that, why don't you just rip the metal away from the windows, get the kids out?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because metal striking against metal causes sparks, officer." She looked blank. "There's gas all over the place?" Comprehension lit her face and she flushed, backing up. Spider-Man hauled himself into the cab and shoved the gears to neutral. Then he squeezed in between the cab and the tank, bracing his feet and putting his shoulders into it. _Please, don't let this be a mistake..._the thought of flames closing over the bus, the students crying to get out...Relying on his spider-sense to stop him if he was about to set off a deadly spark, grimacing each time the tanker screeched as it moved, he gently, slowly, rolled the heavy tanker back several feet over the gas-soaked street.

Several windows on this side, no longer sealed off by the tanker's cab, were bent but passable. Even as Spider-Man straightened and turned, one kid was wriggling free. Another police car had finally arrived, along with two ambulances. Paramedics and cops helped elementary students work their way out. As a fire engine pulled up and began hosing down the tanker and bus, Spider-Man risked pulling one window wider and squirmed inside to retrieve two unconscious students and the bus driver, moving them gingerly onto stretchers provided by the official emergency personnel and sliding them out of the bus.

Standing under the rain once more, Spider-Man wished he could pull his mask up and wipe the water off his face. _On second thoughts, it'd just drip again._ He was tired and uncertain that he had really done any good here. _The kids could've waited for the official equipment to arrive and free them,_ he thought. _But what if something had sparked?_ A burly fireman moved past him with a hose. Spidey jumped halfway up a wall, unnoticed for once in the confusion of crying children, storm, and emergency gear. One ambulance had already left, sirens blaring. Undecided, he looked back down at the cluster of kids and paramedics on the sidewalk. He saw a black-haired boy shove the female officer away from him, hard.

"Back off, pig!" the boy shouted. The officer and two paramedics moved closer, trying to calm him down, but the boy punched the nearest paramedic below the belt and tried to run. The female officer and the second paramedic caught the slender child and restrained him, the cop speaking urgently into the radio clipped to her shoulder. Spider-Man caught a fragment of what she was saying over the wind "...eyes dilated, possible drug use..." The boy was wrestled into an ambulance.

The wall-crawler's jaw dropped under his mask. _The kid's what, sixth grade? Maybe?_ Shaken, and not knowing what else to do, he moved slowly off to collect his clothes and make his way back to the mansion.

Walking into Harry's house, Peter noticed his reflection in the hall mirror. His clothes were wet, wrinkled and dirty; he looked like he'd been rolling in the gutter. Depressed, he shuffled upstairs. Maybe he'd take Harry up on his offer of a car to go visit Aunt May later. Public transportation didn't seem to work for him.

* * *

_"...bus driver still in critical condition. In other news, philanthropist Wilson Fisk will be hosting the presentation of the new corporate-sponsored public school curriculum this Friday at the historic Colonial Rotunda. Select teachers and students have been invited to the presentation, as well as political and business leaders. Free children's books, pocket calculators, and backpacks will be handed out. The new curriculum will be used on a trial basis in selected schools in the coming semester and implemented city-wide next fall."_ A film clip of Wilson Fisk, standing in front of a bank of microphones, appeared on screen next to the cheery anchorwoman. _"We firmly believe that New York will set the standard for schools nationwide over the next year,"_ he said in his deep voice_. "Working together as a community, we can make anything happen."_

Harry turned it off and began rummaging through the kitchen shelves. Rain was pattering rhythmically against the large window over the sink. Peter, sitting at the long table in the middle of the room, tilted his bowl to scoop up the last of his cornflakes and milk and frowned. How did Fisk's curriculum fit in with Cheap Shot and his lethal device? Was Cheap Shot just hired muscle? The death of the councilman and the PTA members pointed to the curriculum being in the center of whatever was going on, but for the life of him, Peter couldn't see anything illegal in providing books for kids.

He poured himself another bowl of cereal, returned to the table, and started shoveling food in again. Since his change, he'd been eating two or three times as much as before. Web-slinging took a lot out of a person. He watched Harry grab a couple of pop-tarts from a cupboard and shove them into the toaster. His friend had spent the whole day yesterday in bed, being nursed through the aftereffects of his ordeal by the houseman, Bernard. Apparently, he had decided to rejoin the living this morning—wearing jeans and a sweater, for a change.

His mood was sour though, and he'd heard all about Spider-Man's connection with the bizarre attack. Peter hoped fervently that Harry's situation would be resolved soon, now that Aunt May was improving, so Peter could leave the oppressive mansion behind.

As Harry stared morosely at his appliances, waiting for breakfast to heat, Peter wondered if casually commenting on Wilson Fisk or the curriculum would get any results. Fisk had made some kind of proposal to Norman Osborn, and Harry had chosen to back away from it. Why?

"Wilson Fisk," Harry said suddenly. Peter dropped his spoon. Mopping up milk and cornflakes gave him a few seconds to calm his thudding heart and come up with a reasonable reply.

"Huh?" he said.

"On the news just now? The guy going in for education, that's passing out all the textbooks?" Harry turned, leaned against the marble counter, and folded his arms over his chest. Taking a deep breath, he went on. "I think...I don't know if I should tell you this, but I think...there's something fishy about the whole thing." Harry huddled his arms tighter, and didn't look up from the floor tiles.

"How do you mean, fishy?" Peter tried to sound nonchalant. He couldn't believe Harry was bringing this up.

"Well, I don't know much about it...it was something my dad got involved in, right before—you know, before." Harry closed his eyes. Opening them again, he continued, "One of his lawyers showed me this contract, told me it was an agreement to contribute to the school program in return for OsCorp advertising in the textbooks. You know the kind of thing, PR stuff—'OsCorp: helping to secure America's future' type of crap, we do it in magazines all the time. Only, the amount for the contract? Huge. Bigger than OsCorp's whole advertising budget, really." Harry was finding it easier now that he'd gotten started. Peter stopped pretending to eat and sat quietly, knowing that any questions would probably stop Harry's confession.

"So I asked questions—I mean, education's a good thing, but—and this lawyer, Miles, got kind of nasty...hinted that I was too young and stupid to know what I was talking about, my father had agreed to it, that kind of thing. Pissed me off." Harry frowned. "So I refused to sign it. This Fisk guy comes to see me the next day, walks into Dad's office at OsCorp like he owns the place, starts pushing me to go through with the contract. I think I was pretty smooth about it—I kind of blew him off, said our reputation was solid and we didn't need to spend that kind of money to make OsCorp look good."

Peter kept his eyes on his cereal bowl and mumbled encouragingly. Harry, standing up to Fisk? He was willing to bet Harry was stretching the truth on that a little. Or maybe not—Harry might have been so wrapped up in his young executive impression that he'd failed to recognize Fisk for the shark he was.

"So, then, he says...this isn't normal advertising, this had guaranteed results. Worth every cent because OsCorp was getting on the fast track to total public approval and support."

Peter couldn't help it. He blurted out, "What, like subliminal advertising? That kind of thing?"

"Yeah, only...Fisk didn't say anything I can repeat, but I got the idea...that there's some kind of...mind control going on." Harry chuckled nervously. "OK, saying that out loud, it sounds pretty stupid."

Peter turned in his chair and looked directly at his friend, who had forgotten all about his pop-tarts. His mind was racing. "Maybe not so stupid...What did he say when you refused? Uh, you did turn it down, right?"

"Yeah," Harry half smiled at Peter. "Yeah, I did. He wasn't happy about it. In fact, he..." Harry studied the ceiling for a moment, shifting uncomfortably. "The other night, when we all went mental? I don't mean to go paranoid on you, but I think it might have been an attempt to..." He trailed off and looked embarrassed. "Spider-Man was here, too," he added, his voice growing hard. "I think he might be working for Fisk. First my father, and now me." Harry clenched his jaw, his eyes narrowed.

Wincing at the mention of Spider-Man, Peter picked up the remnants of his breakfast and set it in the sink. _Mind control...irresistible advertising, aimed at kids...and Cheap Shot, who has a device to influence the human mind. What did Dr. Bell say? 'Higher frequencies could cause extreme suggestibility'._ Lost in thought, he started when Harry spoke again.

"I know you think that freak is some kind of hero," Harry said in a low voice. "But I've got to ask you, and I'm asking you to remember that I'm your best friend, and my father thought of you as part of the family. Spider-Man should be brought down. What I need to know is, do you think I should tell the police about all this? Do you think they'll take it seriously?" Harry was pleading.

"Yes," Peter said firmly. "I do." Harry grinned at him, relieved, and for a split second their old friendship was there between them, the way it had been before Mary Jane, Norman Osborn, and Spider-Man had torn unpatchable holes in it.

Then Harry said, "Good. Stay with me, I'll need moral support."

"Stay with you?"

"Yeah, this detective guy—Lamont—wanted to come by and question me as soon as I felt up to it. He's supposed to be here by nine." Harry frowned at the toaster. "Dang it. Can you re-heat pop-tarts?"

* * *

Peter sat nervously in the armchair in front of the fireplace, homework spread out on his lap, unable to concentrate. _C'mon, MJ saw you in costume a couple of times, spoke to you even, and didn't get it..._Peter thought that over wistfully. To tell the truth, he'd said some really stupid things to her_...I was in the neighborhood...you know who I am..._some part of him trying to sabotage his own secret identity, hoping Mary Jane would figure it out. Lamont on the other hand—_just relax. This isn't going to be a problem._ Peter looked down at the math problem he was working, realized he'd made a mistake six lines up, and erased furiously.

Harry was at his father's desk again, a stack of OsCorp reports in front of him. He had the same frustrated, puzzled expression on his face that he had used for his chemistry class, before he left school to run the company. When Bernard came to the door and announced Detective Lamont, Harry stood up immediately and walked around the desk, holding out one hand to the thin, grey-haired detective with the strong, harsh face.

"Detective. Thank you for coming to see me," Harry said. He waved a hand at two low-backed chairs in the middle of the expensive rug. "Please, have a seat."

"Mr. Osborn. I hope you are fully recovered?" Lamont said in his smoke-roughened voice, sitting across from Harry.

"Certainly, yes, well maybe just a trace of a headache," Harry replied with a brave smile.

Seeing Detective Lamont sitting calmly in Norman's familiar study was surreal. Peter, setting his homework on the floor and moving awkwardly over to stand in front of the fire, wished intensely that his schizophrenic world would stop finding ways to collide.

Lamont was already asking Harry to go over the events of Monday night.

"—and then, everything began to sway and move, I started seeing things that weren't there. It—it's hard to remember now, like a nightmare—"

"Do you know what time this began?"

"Of course not, I told you, I was confused, hallucinating—"

Peter raised his eyebrows and stared at the rug. The authoritative, practical detective brought out the worst in Harry, who was becoming defensive.

"I don't expect you to understand, it was a terrible experience. I passed out from the pain and suffered the effects all day yesterday." Harry stared haughtily down his nose at the policeman. "I missed a whole day's work at OsCorp. In my position, that is a serious loss."

"I'm sure it is." Harry looked mollified, plainly missing the insincerity in Lamont's reply. "And no one recovered consciousness before the paramedics arrived, right? Can you remember anything at all about the circumstances, Mr. Osborn? Anything that happened just before the incident, anything unusual or out of place?"

Harry considered that, resting his chin on his fist. "Didn't I see you come in, Pete?" he said finally. "Just before?"

Lamont transferred his assessing gaze to Peter and grunted. "This is...Peter Parker?" He referred to a notebook in his lap. "You are a guest of Mr. Osborn?"

Clearing his throat, Peter fought back a flash of panic. "Ah, um. Yes. I mean, yes sir," he stammered. _Relax. Doesn't cloth distort voices? Yeah, in old detective stories people are always using a handkerchief over the receiver to disguise their voice on the phone._ He smiled tightly at Harry and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets.

"And you came into the study, just before the incident?"

"Um, no sir, not right before. I, um, came in, because I forgot a book, but I was back in my room before I got dizzy. It was just before midnight," he added helpfully.

Lamont grunted again, making a note. "Yes, that agrees with the houseman's statement."

"Really?" Harry looked puzzled. "I seem to remember you being in the room—I guess my memory is still confused," he said with a sigh. "Although the doctor assures me it isn't serious."

"And you Mr. Parker? Were you as seriously affected?" Peter knew he wasn't imagining the mocking tone, but he hoped it was over Harry's theatrics and not because he suspected Peter of being super-human.

"It was pretty rough, I didn't feel good yesterday," he answered, meeting Lamont's eyes squarely.

"Detective Lamont," Harry said, a shade too loudly. "There is something that we—Peter and I talked it over and we think it may be relevant. Of course, I expect you to respect the confidentiality of what I am about to tell you." Harry straightened in his seat, and launched into his Fisk/Spider-Man theory. Lamont listened politely without a flicker of expression betraying previous knowledge of a curriculum plot, or threats made by Fisk against Harry Osborn. He made several notes.

"I see, Mr. Osborn," he said when Harry finally trailed off. "We will of course, follow every possible lead in our investigation of this unfortunate incident."

Peter snorted before he could help it. "Did you have something to add, Mr. Parker?" Lamont asked.

"Is that it? I mean, there's been a death threat, and attempted murder...don't you think you could give Harry some police protection or something?" _Easy on the sarcasm, Pete. No need to give him clues...and you'd never dream of mouthing off to a total stranger. Leave that to Spidey._

Lamont was observing Peter thoughtfully, one hand on his tie. "I'm afraid that without a clearly defined threat, I can't do that." Harry shook his head unhappily. "I will however, tell you this," Lamont said slowly, still looking at Peter. "We believe that Spider-Man was actually in this house that night. An unidentified person placed a 911 call from this address." He turned back to Harry. "Which is odd, if his intent was to kill you."

Peter was speechless, torn between fright over Lamont's deliberate look as he brought up Spider-Man's phone call, anger that he'd given Harry another reason to obsess over Spider-Man without even mentioning Cheap Shot, and surprise at his defense of the vigilante. Harry stood up and glared at the detective, his face red with rage.

"The police have totally failed to take Spider-Man seriously," Harry hissed. "He killed my father, and he's tried to kill me, and you people _aren't doing anything about it!_" he practically shouted.

Lamont was unruffled. "If you remember anything that might be useful, this is my card." He laid a business card on the desk and stood, shaking his pant legs down. Harry stalked over to the French doors, turning his back on Lamont. Peter shrugged helplessly at the detective and indicated the study door. Peter walked Lamont out of the study and down to the main doors in silence.

As the detective put his hand on the knob, he turned to look at Peter again. "You too, Mr. Parker. Call me if you...remember anything."

Peter shrugged again. "Sure. Um, yes sir."

Lamont dropped his hand from the door. "You know, you interview people often enough, you start to know when someone's lying, or hiding something," Lamont said in a friendly, casual voice. "Usually, it's nothing criminal or serious—just those everyday things people don't want the police or their friends knowing about. But it helps if we can clear up any little mysteries. Cops don't necessarily have to make a big deal about it." Peter kept his eyes straight on Lamont, refusing to blink or react.

Lamont shook his head and pulled the door open. "Call me if you change your mind, Mr. Parker," he said, and walked out.


	10. Dead Ends

**_Chapter Ten: Dead Ends_**

Lamont parked his sedan and walked up the precinct steps, ignoring the rain. Interviewing that poor lost schmuck Osborn had been a waste of time. That kid needed to pull his head out and look around. The few facts in Osborn's conspiracy theory backed up what Lamont already knew about Fisk but didn't get him any further. Now, his friend, that Parker boy, had been nervous, but the detective thought he had that taped. He knew Parker took photographs of Spider-Man for the _Bugle_. He was willing to bet the boy saw the vigilante hanging around Osborn's that night and was trying to protect him—kid was the right age for that kind of idiotic, idealistic hero-worship. Sighing, Lamont reached the top of the steps and ran his hand over his wet hair. _Keep Parker in mind, but it's probably nothing. Another dead end._

As Lamont reached for the handle, the precinct door swung open, and he found himself looking into a pair of white eyes tinged with blue. "Mr. Young," Lamont said politely, stepping back.

"Detective Lamont," the ex-senator replied in his whispery voice. Lamont knew the damaged eyes and voice were both reminders of the night ten years before when Joshua Young's Washington home had burned to the ground, killing his wife and family. It didn't make him any less creepy. _Not too long ago,_ he thought uncharitably, _you could go to work without meeting oddballs everywhere._ Young smiled kindly and stepped back himself, motioning Lamont in out of the rain. "How nice to run into you. I was just applauding Captain Spence for his officers' quick work in rescuing me from that maniac."

Spence, in fact, was standing just behind Young and grinning broadly. "Yes, indeed. Detective Lamont has proved a wise choice for his new position. We are only sorry, senator, that you came to harm in our fair city." _Could you lay it on any thicker?_ Lamont silently griped.

"I am sure I will soon read in the papers that your fine men have arrested that costumed menace. And, please, captain, it's no longer senator." Young's polished modesty was charming, but Lamont noted cynically that he shifted his broken hand, immobilized in plaster, in front of him, where it couldn't be missed. _As if the bruise on your chin wasn't getting you enough pity._ "I must be going—I was just released from the hospital this morning—but I had to come by to express my gratitude." He nodded to Lamont and Spence jumped forward to hold the door for him. On impulse, Lamont called after the elderly man.

"Mr. Young?"

"Yes?"

"Forgive my curiosity, but I couldn't help notice the unusual cape you were wearing when we, ah, met." Lamont innocently met Young's eyes. "May I ask where you got it?"

Joshua Young straightened his thin form to its full height, his face solemn. "It was a gift from one of my wife's relatives, after she passed on," he said with dignity. "I wear it...in her memory."

Captain Spence frowned quickly at his subordinate and then turned a sympathetic expression on the former politician. "I am sorry, Mr. Young. I'm sure Detective Lamont didn't intend to bring up a painful subject."

Young nodded and moved quickly down the damp steps to his waiting taxi. Spence watched him leave, his hands clasped behind his back. "Let me give you some friendly advice, Lamont," he said quietly. "Young may not be an elected official anymore, but he has influence where it counts. Don't mess up the good work you've done so far by barking up the wrong tree."

"Yes, sir." Spence clapped him on the shoulder and walked briskly back toward his office. Lamont stood in the precinct entryway, dripping on the linoleum. _And that was a warning not to listen to freaky wall-crawlers. There's no evidence, nothing to connect Young with the school killings and only Spider-Man's word that he attacked Osborn, all this crazy Cheap Shot crap ._ If he investigated Young, Spence would be all over him. Lamont stared down at his wet shoes. _Problem is, much as I hate to admit it...I believe the freak._

"Hey, Detective!" A dispatching sergeant hollered at him from behind the front counter. "There's a call out for you to get down to Macy's. Bomb threat."

"Yeah? Why me?"

"Guy in a costume, got a bunch of hostages. No one's sure what his deal is, super-powered or not, so they want you." The sergeant grimaced in commiseration. "Sorry about sending you back out in the rain."

Lamont grunted. "We're all underpaid."

* * *

"Hi!" Mary Jane chirped at the man who opened the door. "I was looking for Pete, ah, is he here?"

Bernard ran an assessing eye over her and apparently decided in her favor. "Please come in, Miss. Mr. Parker is currently away but I can relay a message."

Mary Jane stepped into the imposing entry hall, caught off guard by the rich, gloomy decoration. _Harry lives here? It's like Dracula's castle._ She realized her mouth was open and closed it quickly. "Well, I wanted to give him back the key to his aunt's house," she said. _And I was curious about Harry's place. Sue me._ "So, I guess you could...do you have any idea when he'll be back?"

"No, miss," Bernard said. "If you—"

"Bernard! Have you seen my—" Harry, pattering down the front stairs, stopped dead as he spotted MJ in her bright yellow rain poncho. "MJ!"

"Hi, Harry," Mary Jane said timidly. "I hope you don't mind, I just came by to drop off Aunt May's key..."

Harry came the rest of the way down. "Of course I don't mind. You're welcome here anytime, you know. I'd like to think we can still be friends."

"Yeah, me too," MJ said, relieved. Bernard had faded tactfully from the room. Harry stood undecided at the foot of the stairs for a moment. "So, um, you want to come in? Can I get you anything?" He waved vaguely at a door behind her.

"Oh, no, I'm fine." Mary Jane glanced around, smiling, and searched her mind desperately. _OK, what do you say to your ex-boyfriend you have nothing to say to, what do you say..._ "I, ah, I heard you had some trouble a couple of nights ago, Peter...uh, Peter was telling me about it." She turned pink.

"Yeah. Spider-Man tried to kill me," Harry said. He raised his chin and crossed his arms, as if he was daring her to contradict him.

"Oh. I...Peter didn't say that."

"Well, I think Peter's starting to change his mind about that lunatic. I guess all it took was him being attacked, too." Harry sounded bitter. "But he backed me up when I told the police about it. Not that they listened."

MJ said slowly, "You mean, he wanted you to report Spider-Man to the police?"

"Yep. Hey, whatever he used on us was scary. Peter was knocked flat by it too. Betcha he stops going around taking pictures of the bug." Harry hugged himself tighter and seemed to be smiling at some inner joke.

Mary Jane frowned, opening her mouth and closing it again. Then she blurted, "So, Pete was here? All the time? I mean, you saw him?"

Harry said, "Well, duh." Impatiently, he went on. "The police are incompetent, entirely incompetent. Spider-Man has been running around New York like he owns the place for months and they don't have a clue. Do they even know how many people he's killed? Do they even care? I swear, if this keeps up, I'm going to take matters in to my own hands."

Mary Jane wasn't listening. "Right, um, yeah, I know. Um, Harry, I need to take off, I've...got an audition, I just wanted to drop this off." She pulled the key out of her purse and lifted the poncho enough to drop it into her ex-boyfriend's hand. "Just, um, tell him to let me know when Aunt May gets out of the hospital." MJ backed up to the front door and pulled it open, shouting "Well, bye!" before she dived through, leaving Harry with a startled expression as she escaped the mansion.

_I have never felt more stupid in my entire life,_ Mary Jane thought, as she boarded the bus. _I've known Peter all my life, practically. Remember all the times you had PE together, girl? What did you think, that he turned into some kind of super-athlete overnight?_ She settled into an empty seat and pressed her forehead against the window. _And does it really matter?_

Mary Jane's throat was tight and her eyes burned. _God, am I that shallow? Am I that disappointed that Peter isn't...special?_ She brushed at her wet face, angry with herself. _No, I'm not._ _It matters, because I thought it was why he pushed me away...I didn't want to believe...that maybe he just doesn't love me._

* * *

The Kingpin settled his bulk back in his chair, taking his time getting comfortable. Cheap Shot, dressed in that ridiculous gold cape, waited in the chair in front of the desk, betraying no impatience for Fisk to begin. Letting his eyes roam over his two associates, one neatly positioned by the door and one sitting near the wall behind Cheap Shot, Fisk grunted in satisfaction turned his attention to the matter at hand.

"I understand that Osborn has not been taken care of, Mr. Young," Fisk said.

Cheap Shot chuckled under his breath at the use of his real name. "Naturally, you have your sources within the police force," he whispered.

"Naturally." Fisk fingered his diamond-topped cane, resting on the desk in front of him. "My estimation of you has certainly...dropped. Osborn is capable of causing problems for the Consensus Project, if he puts his mind to it. I believe he has already spoken with the police. I keep my operations quiet, Mr. Young, for a reason. Nor do I hire enforcers who can be foiled by attention-seeking semi-humans in tights."

"The project will continue as planned. What can anyone do to stop it? Your worry over Osborn has always been excessive. Nothing will stand in the way." Cheap Shot folded his arms, tucking his damaged hand out of sight.

Fisk's eyes narrowed in his fleshy face at the arrogance and contempt in Cheap Shot's voice. "It seems Spider-Man stopped _you_, with considerable ease. I thought you had a talent for unnoticed approaches. How did he manage to outmaneuver you?" he asked, letting his amusement show.

"He was lucky," Cheap Shot replied dismissively. The Kingpin regarded him thoughtfully and came to the conclusion that the assassin didn't know the answer to his question. That was dangerous. What Spider-Man had done once, he might do again. Cheap Shot was too wrapped up in his vision of future glory to understand the risks of underestimating an enemy.

"You are, of course, right about one thing," Fisk said smoothly. "The project will continue as planned. It is in place, the devices prepared and waiting for distribution. In fact, I can't help but ask myself: what need is there for your further inept involvement?"

Cheap Shot made a sudden movement, as if to rise, but quieted immediately at the feel of a cold metal barrel pressed into the side of his head. The blond man who had been sitting silently behind Cheap Shot pushed the gun confidently against the gold hood. Fisk's second associate at the door moved to block it, his meaty hand dwarfing the gun he held.

Fisk tightened his lips in surprise as Cheap Shot began to laugh. The dry, harsh chuckle continued as the men with guns exchanged uncertain looks, shifting in place. Fisk slammed one hand hard into his desk and the laughter stopped.

Cheap Shot relaxed back in his chair, apparently at ease, and said, "Your sponsors have paid a great deal of money for their advertising and have high expectations. Are you going to disappoint them?"

"Explain," Fisk commanded tersely.

"Quite simple. The Consensus Project is mine, not yours, and I have no intention of allowing you control over it. I have programmed each device to function only when receiving a code broadcast on a uncommon frequency. When the devices in the schools receive the correct signal, they will transmit electromagnetic waves on the correct frequency to create a state of suggestive hypnosis in the students' young minds. The children will accept all that they hear or see as undeniable truths. As an unimportant side effect, this will create an overwhelming need for your advertisers' products in their little brains."

Cheap Shot leaned forward, his face still hidden by the hood of his rustling cape. "Of course, if I fail—for whatever reason—to broadcast the code, your advertisers will have graciously donated large amounts to help New York's troubled education system, without the substantial return you have led them to expect."

Fisk remained motionless for several heartbeats. Then he smiled slowly. "I see. In that case, I believe our partnership must...go on."

Cheap Shot rose to his feet and bent his head in a mocking bow. "Indeed." He turned to leave and was stopped by the muscular guard at the door. At Fisk's nod, the man holstered his gun under his arm and moved to one side.

Cheap Shot stepped briskly into the doorway, but then paused and, with a swirl of metallic cloth, looked back at the Kingpin. "Of course, with all the good people innocently involved in distributing the curriculum and its...accessories, I wonder—would everything go ahead as planned, even if you were...unable to supervise it?" Fisk made no answer, and Cheap Shot laughed again and left.

For a long time, Wilson Fisk sat at his desk, considering his next move. He knew a declaration of war when he heard it.

* * *

Lamont stood by an elegant column on the main floor of Macy's, part of the semi-circle formed by the SWAT team, members of the bomb squad, and police. Racks of clothing and displays had been roughly moved aside to give a clear line-of-sight to the hostages hemmed in against the wall, under the overhanging balcony. The SWAT team officers overlooked the area from the second floor, and were positioned under the stairs curving down on each side of the area, their rifles at the ready but unable to get a clear shot without endangering hostages. Standing in front of the frightened retail clerks and unlucky customers was the bomber, grey plastique and colorful wires strapped around his belly, aggressively waving the detonator switch and shouting.

"That much plastique is enough to bring the ceiling down, at least," said Lt. Roth in a low voice, setting his hands on his wide hips. "Not to mention what it'll do to anyone within a twenty-foot radius.

Lamont grunted his comprehension. Roth had been an expert with the bomb squad for over fifteen years; Lamont took his estimate seriously. "Any chance of taking him down before he triggers it?"

Roth shook his head and rubbed a handkerchief over his bald head. "Good old dead-man's switch. If he lifts his finger off that button, everything goes up. Keep anyone from doing anything stupid, like shooting him." Roth sighed briefly.

"Listen to me! _Come on, I'll do it!_" the bomber shouted. "I want a helicopter, and a color TV, and a couple hundred thousand, _in cash_, and a public apology from all you jerks!" He swung the switch in his hand wildly, and a couple of cops stepped back nervously. The switch, a small metal cylinder, had a red button at the top, held down by the bomber's thumb. If his thumb slipped during one of his panicked gestures, releasing that little red button, the _Daily Bugle_ and the other city rags would have sensational headlines tomorrow. "I mean it, _you better believe I mean it!_" he added hysterically. "And I want a carton of cheese!"

Cautiously, Lamont raised his hands and stepped in front of the gathered officers. "Easy now, just take it easy," he said calmly. "We're listening, we're all here to listen."

"Is this a bad time?" Spider-Man—perched on the railing halfway up the right-hand stairway—called down to Lamont. Two SWAT officers near the stairs jumped back and gaped upward. Lamont closed his eyes and took a deep breath, but whatever he was about to say was overridden by the bomber.

"Spider-Man!" the bomber yelled, actually jumping up and down in excitement. "Awesome, awesome! I am such a fan of yours, man!"

Spider-Man turned his head to the bomber and stared, apparently taken aback. "Tell me I'm seeing things. Who—or what—are you supposed to be?"

The bomber chuckled proudly and stroked his ear with the hand not holding the detonator. The ears were large, round, and resting precariously on top of his head. Like the rest of his brown costume, they were obviously homemade. The tail was a piece of dirty rope sewn onto the drooping butt of the suit with huge white stitches. The bomber's culminating act of genius had been to plant a red rubber novelty nose in the middle of his face. The sagging cloth of his suit was bunched up by blocks of gluey plastique tied firmly around his generous middle.

"Not bad, right?" he smirked. "I've had enough of people walking all over me, _I said I've had enough!_" he shouted, pointing the switch threateningly at the cops on his other side before shifting his paranoid eyes back to Spider-Man. "I'm getting the respect I deserve, respect for RATSBANE!" he waved both arms out to the side and bowed melodramatically.

"Ratsbane? What's next? Lice? Scorpions?" the wall-crawler joked. Ratsbane frowned, working his way through the sarcasm.

Lamont growled, "Yeah, the vermin in this city are out of control."

"Hey—" said Spider-Man and Ratsbane, in unison.

"Spider-Man, get lost. Now." Lamont turned back toward the rodent bomber, still showing his palms non-threateningly.

"Is it just me, Detective, or are you always in the middle of weird situations?" Spider-Man asked.

"I've had it with you, you know that?" Lamont snapped.

"_Hey, _man with a bomb here?" Ratsbane inserted, irritated at losing his audience. The dozen or so armed officers were looking from Spider-Man to Lamont to the bomber, bemused.

Spider-Man lifted one hand and the next second Ratsbane was staring in shock at silvery goop covering the end of his arm. It took the hostages and on-looking officers a second or two to realize that Ratsbane could no longer release the detonator switch. Then Ratsbane disappeared under four members of the bomb squad, who knocked him down and threw heavy lead-filled blankets on top of him while other officers moved in to get the hostages clear. Lamont heard Ratsbane squealing in protest, but all he could see of him was the end of his tail.

Spider-Man, balanced easily on the two-inch railing of the stairway, leaned an elbow against one knee and propped his chin on his hand. "So, now do you have a minute?"

Lamont rubbed wearily at his eyes and moved back to lean against a column. "It's not a joke, you know. Grandstanding around like that...what if he'd set the bomb off before you could stop him?"

"There wasn't any danger of that."

"What, you're psychic?"

"Well, as a matter of fact...yeah, kinda. I know there wasn't any danger here. I didn't mean to make anyone nervous..." Spider-Man shrugged. "I just knew he wasn't really a threat."

Lamont sighed and knocked his head back against the column. "So, what did you want?"

"Do you know anything new about the whole curriculum thing?"

"Not anything you haven't covered. I've been reading over the curriculum itself—standard stuff: math, reading, bunch of cute little cartoon characters saying things like 'just say no', 'love the earth', 'look both ways before you cross the street'." Lamont watched as Ratsbane was hauled to his feet, minus the bomb. "And a bunch of ads."

The wall-crawler dug at the waist of his costume and produced a small black box. "This is the device I took off of Cheap Shot," he said. "I checked it out. It produces electromagnetic waves at rare frequencies. It can do a lot of things, depending on the frequency you choose. It caused Osborn and the others to hallucinate and would have killed them if I hadn't stopped it." Spider-Man tossed the box to Lamont. "But at a different frequency, it can cause suggestibility. Aimed at the kids at school, it would make them want to buy whatever was advertised to them."

"Hell, they've been doing that for years. It's called TV," Lamont snorted, turning the box over in his hands.

"Consider this the next generation of advertising technology," Spider-Man said grimly. "They must be planting transmitters like this in the schools."

"Or handing them out. Like say, in calculators?"

"Or even hidden in backpacks? Yeah, could be."

Lt. Roth came up, clearing his throat and hitching his pants up. "Sorry to interrupt." To Lamont's surprise, he nodded politely to Spider-Man. "Thought you might want to know. Guy was a complete flake. It was play dough, not plastique."

"Son of a—," Lamont said, and sighed. "Thanks. Nice to know we weren't really flirting with death there." Roth chuckled, slapped Lamont on the back, nodded again to Spider-Man and headed out with his team. Lamont looked at the vigilante speculatively. "Guess you were right."

"Well, like I said."

Lamont stared at the small box in his hands for a long moment and then tossed it back to the wall-crawler. "So where does that get us? A respected philanthropist is handing out books and school supplies. Without a shred of real evidence, we're supposed to shut him down? How?"

Spider-Man was silent. After a pause he said slowly, "You have to have gotten Cheap Shot's ID the night I brought him to the precinct."

"Yeah." the detective said curtly. "So? He's clean—in the eyes of the law. You expect me to hand out his name and address to a wanted vigilante? What for? So you can kill him? Beat a confession out of him? What kind of cop do you think I am?"

Jumping lightly down to stand in front of Lamont, Spider-Man said seriously, "A good one."

Lamont took a deep breath. "Well." He looked up. "If you get any bright ideas, let me know, because I'm all out."

* * *

**_A/N:_**_ Thank you to everyone who reviewed, I appreciate it knowing what you liked, what you got—what you didn't get. You are great readers._

_Thank you, Emily and Tinderblast for keeping me up-to-date on Lamont's appearances in the comics._

_Thank you, Badgerlock, for overcoming your reluctance to review and leaving me such a detailed, helpful commentary. Fantastic! And yes, Cheap Shot is an OC._


	11. Pop Quiz

**_Chapter Eleven: Pop Quiz_**

Stephen Joule stood with his back against the wall. He had straight blond hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and bony wrists, and was peering at a small screen on what appeared to be a calculator. He could have been mistaken for an accountant, if it weren't for the combat armor.

Joule checked the screen on the tracker one more time, slid it into his pocket, and drew his .357 from its holster. He jerked his head at Hendricks, who smoothly stepped forward in response to the signal, sweeping his gun and eyes across the hall as he moved into position. He nodded in turn and Joule came past him, alert for trouble. The signal indicated that Cheap Shot was near the roof, but Joule and Hendricks were too professional to take unnecessary chances.

Hendricks caught up with Joule at the end of the deserted hall. Through the walls of the WXXP building, they could dimly hear the cheerful ruckus of the popular radio station, with its ringing phones and busy personnel working away the Friday afternoon. In spite of WXXP's heavy security, Cheap Shot had no difficulty breaking into empty offices occupying the unused upper floors and his shadows had followed him past the 'For Lease' signs only moments later.

Wilson Fisk had sent his two top industrial spies to investigate Cheap Shot as soon as he had been identified as Joshua Young. Before the former senator was even released from the hospital, his apartment had been located and bugged, his clothes and shoes tagged with transmitters and microphones.

After the confrontation in Fisk's office, Cheap Shot had shimmered out of sight—that was a neat trick, one that Joule wouldn't mind sharing—but Joule and Hendricks had tracked him electronically to a flea-bag motel. Minutes later, Cheap Shot had sent a virus over the internet to wipe out the hard drive on his home computer. This accomplished nothing. They had copied the computer's entire hard drive while in Young's apartment the day before.

Waiting patiently in their van outside his motel hideout, they had sifted rapidly through the files. In a matter of hours they had deciphered coded information indicating that Cheap Shot had made some interesting additions to WXXP's broadcast antenna. Fisk had been pleased, but had cautioned them not to eliminate their target until they discovered the broadcast code for the Consensus Project. Apparently, Cheap Shot hadn't entered the code in his computer system.

Reaching the stairs, Joule swept the area and then cautiously motioned for his partner to follow. The blond man led the way with Hendricks following heavily, gun gripped in his oversized hand. They advanced slowly to the twelfth floor, where Joule pushed the stair door open and stepped into a carpeted hall. The door screeched loudly and Joule tensed, cursing silently. It was vital not to alarm Cheap Shot—at least, not until he entered the Consensus code into his pirate transmitter.

Hendricks eased the door closed and passed by Joule. They continued their sweep until they were satisfied the area was deserted, then swung their bags from their backs and began plugging in and setting up a variety of electronic equipment in an empty office. Cheap Shot, two stories above them on the roof, would be activating the Consensus Project within seconds. Once Hendricks' specially modified equipment received and copied the code, it could be re-broadcast at Fisk's discretion and Cheap Shot would be expendable. Hendricks was on his knees next to his equipment, huge hands moving with surprising deftness as he made the final adjustments and turned on the digital scanner. There was plenty of light for him to work by coming through the window. Joule kept watch at the door.

"Receiving," Hendricks announced briefly, and Joule turned to see the scanner light up, its computer brain sorting through the radio waves saturating the air, searching for unusual signals originating in the immediate area. Joule shifted his grip on his gun and glanced mechanically into the hall. Although Fisk had warned them that Cheap Shot was a high-risk target—and promised extra pay for the hazard—so far the old man had done nothing impressive except pull his useless vanishing act. Waiting for the code to be broadcast and received, Joule entertained himself with detailed, meticulous plans for the money Fisk would be paying them.

"Possible match," Hendricks said. "Possible—" A high-pitched, deafening shriek interrupted him. The noise reached into Joule's head, building up behind his eyes and pounding in his ears, filling the world.

Joule whirled around. His eyes went wide, comically magnified by his glasses, as he saw Hendricks, blood pouring from his nose, falling to one side. Before his partner finished falling, Joule had opened fire on the receiver. The electronic scream overwhelmed the roar of gunfire, but he saw plastic jump from the speaker as four shots splintered it. He hit the scanner with two shots, sending up sparks and throwing the metal case against the wall. The lethal shriek cut off, finally, and Joule cried out with relief in the welcome silence. Hendricks was curled into a fetal position on the carpet.

Wiping his mouth, Joule walked into the room and slid two fingers against Hendricks' neck. His skin was already clammy and there was no pulse. Joule wiped at his mouth again, only then noticing the blood trickling down his chin. Taking a deep breath, Joule blinked away the red haze over his vision and took stock of his own injuries. He had burst blood vessels in his eyes, his nose was bleeding, and his ears were ringing loudly. His hands were shaking, making it difficult to reload the .357, but he hurried to shove the cartridges in, his eyes roaming the hall.

Pulling the tracker from his pocket, he checked Cheap Shot's position. Unchanged. Had the sonic weapon been automatic, set up to kill anyone who attempted to track or copy the broadcast code? Or was Cheap Shot aware of them, ready to attack again? Joule shook his head hard, trying to clear his mind. The equipment was wrecked, Hendricks was dead, and Fisk could go to hell—Joule was getting out of here. Leaving his partner's body behind with the remains of their operation, Joule ducked down the hall at a run.

He hit the stair door with his shoulder and burst through. Grabbing the banister with one hand, he jumped as far down the first flight of steps as he could, stumbling and falling to his hands and knees as he landed. His gun slid out of his hand. As he lunged flat, reaching for it, Joule felt something warm blow through the hair on top of his head. Turning on his back, he saw a heavy chunk of concrete leap from the wall above him and smash to the floor, its muffled thud sounding odd in his half-deafened ears. It left behind a scorched crater larger than his head, almost a foot deep. He could smell the sharp, acrid odor of ozone and see fading flashes of energy sparking and dying between the walls. Dust danced in the sunlight, outlining a laser beam over the stairs. Crossing that line had set off the explosion, and only Joule's panicked fall had saved his life. For the second time in seconds, Joule had escaped a deadly booby trap.

Joule rolled over, lying on his belly against the rough edges of the stairs, his feet above his head. Just ahead of him was the concrete landing, the stairs continuing down in the opposite direction and below him. Down that second flight there were small round black sensors placed along the base of the wall. Peering through his dust-covered glasses, he saw red indicator lights flashing on. The first set was there on the fourth step down, second set near the door to the eleventh floor. Armed and ready. Well, that answered one question: Cheap Shot knew they were there. He was activating new traps, ready for Joule's next move. Letting his forehead fall, Joule cursed. If Cheap Shot knew he was there, he must know about the surveillance bugs...they'd been played.

Breathing hard, Stephen Joule decided right there and then that he was going to make it out.

* * *

Spider-Man released the web line he was holding with his left hand, throwing out his right hand and spinning a new line while his momentum carried him forward. The route to campus was familiar enough that he could move automatically through the cold air, his mind on everything but his web-slinging. There was ice everywhere, since the rain of two days before had frozen in puddles all over the city after the temperature dropped sharply, but even the glitter of sunlight on ice didn't catch his attention for long.

The good news was that Aunt May would be released from the hospital this afternoon, once her doctor looked her over and gave the OK. She was glad to be returning home, cheerfully assuring him on the phone that she would be fine by herself when Peter had offered to move back in for awhile. Peter had accepted that she needed her independence but silently promised to visit her more often. Starting with picking her up this afternoon, as soon as he finished with school.

Without a clue what to do next as far as Wilson Fisk was concerned, Peter had stayed home yesterday—well, except for stopping that bank robbery—to fill out the scholarship application and write his essay after class. Both were now tucked safely in his backpack, ready for delivery.

The essay hadn't been easy. For some reason, Peter found it hard to define his future academic goals. He had re-considered all the daydreams he'd had in high school, tried to put them down in black and white, but as he wrote each sentence his mind insisted on pointing out how much crime-fighting would get in the way of earning his Ph.D., how impossible it would be to research atomic physics and swing around the city in tights at the same time. His life was hard enough to balance now, with his academic ambitions shoved to the back burner.

_Balance,_ Spidey mused, landing briefly on a traffic signal before throwing himself forward again. _I need to find a way balance my responsibilities, school, my friends...there's got to be a way to do it. This scholarship might be a good way to start._ He swung up on a web-line, high enough to look out over the city, spotting familiar landmarks. There was the Chrysler Building, Wright Tower, the WXXP building—

Dropping suddenly to a convenient rooftop, Spider-Man looked again at the WXXP offices. A squat, flat-topped, ugly building, it was always noticeable from the air because of the massive antenna and assorted satellite dishes stuck apparently at random across its roof. What caught his attention now was the cloud of black smoke curling around the broadcast equipment and floating slowly across the windows of the skyscraper next to it. _Uh-oh._ The web-slinger hopped a few roofs closer, spotting more smoke funneling out from broken windows along the sides of the building and joining the slowly expanding cloud.

Sliding the straps of his backpack off his shoulders, Spider-Man secured it to the roof and flipped into the air, catching himself with a web and swinging toward the radio station at top speed. The closer he got, the worse it looked. Flames were beginning to flicker along the walls, darting up and fumbling over the bricks then retreating, only to reappear stronger than before. People were screaming and jamming the fire escapes, trying to make it down to the street. Firemen were unrolling hoses, setting ladders against the walls.

Spider-Man swung wide around the building, checking for more damage or gloating super-villains, before kicking his way through a window and landing in a crouch inside an unfurnished office on the top floor. He had a simple plan: check each floor, make sure everyone got out, keep an eye on falling debris.

The simple plan went out the window as his spider-sense flared warningly. He jerked his head around just in time to spot the edge of a gold cape flickering past the doorway. _Cheap Shot! _Spider-Man leaped forward without stopping to wonder what the assassin was doing here or what he would do if he caught him. Spotting the hooded figure standing below a lighted exit sign at the end of the hall, he called out.

"Trying to break into radio? News flash—when they say the entertainment industry is murder, it's a _metaphor_."

Cheap Shot's answer was a low, menacing laugh. He had the door behind him open and was stepping through it as Spider-Man jumped, flying across the twenty feet separating them in one smooth motion. At the top of his arc through the air, the vigilante suddenly became aware of the hall around him in microscopic detail: a current of air carrying the scent of burning insulation, the continuous rustle of Cheap Shot's cape, a faint click. His nerves flooded with the urgent need to get out of there, but the narrow hall offered no escape route and he was still mid-air when the explosion rolled down the hallway.

The concussion knocked him backward through the air and his back hit a wall hard enough to snap the spine of any ordinary human. It was enough to knock the wind out of Spider-Man, who dropped to the floor. A second later he got his feet under him and stood carefully, one hand to his chest. The hall was on fire, thick smoke making his lungs burn as he gasped for breath.

"Gah," he panted. Willing himself to ignore the pain, he stumbled back toward the exit. After a few steps he jumped to the ceiling and tried to crawl toward forward, but choked on the smoke streaming upward. Dropping back to the floor, he crawled there, under the worst of the smoke. Reaching the stair door as the pain in his chest began to recede, he pulled it open and rolled through, shutting it behind him.

The stairwell was cooler and the clean air flushed the last of the smoke from his lungs. Standing, he looked down. Nothing below. He hopped over the railing and landed on the steps below. As his spider-sense kicked in again, he bounded back up off the stairs, a split-second too late. Spider-Man screamed hoarsely in shock and pain. The blue field of light shimmering into existence below him had just caught his foot. Every nerve in contact with the light exploded in pain, as if the skin had been flayed away from the bones, as if he had dipped his toes in molten iron.

He hit the wall ten feet above the soft blue glow, and felt the pain go dull and start to fade. Clinging to the wall with his hands and one foot, Spider-Man flexibly brought the other foot up between him and the concrete. Stunned, he stared at the undamaged red stocking—from the pain, he'd expected to see nothing but a bleeding stump. He wiggled his toes experimentally in front of his nose, going cross-eyed as he examined them, then set his foot on the wall and looked back down at the stairwell, now innocently empty of blue light.

"Watch out, shoppers, that's a killer of a special..." He was ashamed to hear a weak quaver in the words.

"Yeah, that's the pits, isn't it?" said a tenor voice below him. Spider-Man craned his head and saw a blond guy wearing blackened body armor sitting on the next landing down, cradling a gun against his chest. Spidey doubted he could fire it; both hands were raw and bleeding.

"What's going on here?" he asked.

"You Spider-Man?"

"Who do I look like?" the wall-crawler snapped, irritated.

"Hell if I know. Lost my glasses. You look like a red blur to me, but since you're on the wall..." The guy sighed and said, "You knocked Cheap Shot around earlier this week, didn't you?"

"Yeah, sort of," Spider-Man answered cautiously.

"Well, you should of hit him harder. Like, hard enough to break his neck," the blond guy spat out viciously. "Fisk had us following him, trying to get the code out of him—"

"What code?"

The guy squinted up at him, a doubtful look crossing his dirty face. "You know, the one he has to broadcast to activate the Project?"

"You mean...the hypnotic devices...they won't work until Cheap Shot broadcasts a code?"

"Right, to keep Fisk from double-crossing him, cutting him out of the deal?" He spoke slowly, obviously thinking Spider-Man wasn't much in the brains department. "So, Cheap Shot set us up. Led us here, thinking he was getting ready to broadcast it, thinking we were going to steal it from him and then waste the guy, you follow?"

"Yeah, go on."

"Only, it was a trap. Whole place is a trap, there's laser trip-wires on every floor, all the stairs, explosives, machine guns, the works. And those damn...whatever-the-hell-they-are...one of them got Hendricks, a scream killed him." He coughed. "Hate the blue ones, they hurt like damn-all, but they won't kill you if you can keep moving. The red ones are worse."

"How many of Fisk's people are here?" Spider-Man shifted around until he was head-down, looking at Fisk's battered employee.

"Hendricks is dead, so it's just me," the blond said.

"_What?_"

Both men turned to see Cheap Shot standing on the landing below them, a thin gold specter. His damaged vocal chords weren't up to shouting, but he conveyed his outrage in hissed syllables. "Fisk sent two—_two—_idiots after me? Who does he think he is? Who does he think _I_ am? The fool, the fool. I've wasted my time here, expecting an _army_, and he thinks a couple of hired Neanderthals can stop me?"

_I'm not wasting time with jokes. He is going down._ Pushing off from the wall, Spider-Man launched himself instantly between the rails toward Cheap Shot. But even spider reflexes weren't fast enough, not when his opponent only had to move a finger. The villain calmly punched a button on the transmitter in his hand.

Spider-Man's head itched briefly and fiercely from the onslaught of electromagnetic waves just before a wave of nausea hit him in the gut. He clutched his stomach and fought not to vomit, curling into a ball. Losing all sense of direction, he bounced helplessly off the railings as the force of the sickness doubled him up in mid-air. Cheap Shot turned, in a swirl of gold cloak, and slammed away through the door.

Hitting the cement stairs hard, Spider-Man panted as his belly gradually unknotted. _OK, so...jokes or no jokes, I'm not getting anywhere fast, here._

Sighing with relief, he straightened slowly and then wrinkled his nose with disgust. Fisk's man, now above him, had obviously experienced the nausea Cheap Shot had used on Spider-Man. He was on his knees, gun on the floor, still retching weakly. Spider-Man grabbed at the railing and swung wearily back up to his level. Pulling him to his feet, he gripped his arm as he swayed in place.

"Look—what's your name?"

"Stephen Joule."

"Listen, Joule, Cheap Shot's gonna go after Fisk—"

"Like I care—"

"A lot of people are getting caught in the crossfire."

Joule shrugged and wiped his mouth with the back of one bloody hand. "I just want out of here."

Giving up on teaching Joule the moral of the story, Spider-Man kicked the door in front of him apart, ignoring his companion's panicked shout of warning. He pulled Joule, struggling and dragging his feet, behind him as he walked into the hallway. _OK, we're what—tenth story here? Cheap Shot's somewhere below, making his way out..._

Joule was screaming about traps and sensors, but Spider-Man hauled him into a fireman's carry over his protests and took off along the wall. _Cheap Shot planned to take on Fisk's goons, not me—if I take the high road, I'll avoid most of it. Any traps I can't avoid...I'm going to have to react fast._ Blocking out Joule's moans of fear, he tried to let his thoughts go blank, trusting his spider-sense guide him. Relying deeply on his instincts, his movements became smoother, faster.

Crawling through a broken pane, he shoved the terrified Joule against the bricks of the outside wall and webbed him in place, moaning. Hands free now, he dived off the side of the building, somersaulting to shoot a web back against at the wall. As the line pulled tight, Spider-Man rode the arc and smashed back through a window five stories down. Balancing on the balls of his feet and one hand, he glanced up, then froze. He had come face to face with Cheap Shot.

For a heartbeat, no one moved. Spider-Man realized that he had come through a window into what must be a conference room, but unlike the rest of the building he'd seen, this room was occupied. A dozen or so people were huddled by a table covered in half-empty pizza boxes. The hall beyond was alive with flame; the same fire that had trapped the WXXP employees in the room had driven Cheap Shot out of the stairwell. Cheap Shot glanced behind him at the burning passage, the twitch of the gold cape betraying his fear. He reached beneath his cloak.

Spider-Man kicked off the floor and did a handspring off the ceiling, landing next to Cheap Shot and knocking the transmitter from his hand even as he felt the now-familiar itch building in his head. The effects cut off abruptly as the box went flying and shattered against a wall. Cheap Shot stumbled backward, tripping over the edge of his cape, and nearly fell into the wall of flame behind him. Spider-Man clutched a handful of gold cloth and pulled him roughly back into the room.

"Way to go, Hot Shot," he joked smugly. "Oh excuse me, _Cheap_ Shot. Couldn't you afford a fire extinguisher?"

On cue, the sprinkler system kicked in. Spider-Man started and jumped a little, looking up at the sudden spray of water. Desperately taking advantage of the moment, Cheap Shot grabbed an employee standing close to him, a young woman wearing jeans and a white fuzzy sweater. Twisting one of her arms behind her, the villain pulled out an automatic, fast in spite of his bandaged hand, and shoved it to her head. Another employee, a middle-aged man wearing slacks and a soot-smudged WXXP shirt, shouted uselessly, "Let her go!"

Spider-Man backed off a step, taken by surprise, in part because he'd thought the fight was over. They were trapped by the fire in the hallway. The only way out was through the window, by web.

"Easy," Spider-Man kept his voice low and even. "It's no good, Cheap Shot. This place is burning down. I can get everyone out of here, we need to get out of here now. You've got nowhere to go. What do you think you're going to do?" he said, incredulously.

Cheap Shot backed up, holding the girl in front of him like a shield. Unbelievably, he was laughing. "Catch, Spider-Man!" he shouted hoarsely, throwing the girl into the fire. Spider-Man shot a web at her, splattering her back and shoulders with silvery goo and pulling fast. She fell yelling to the conference room floor, clothes burning, and Spider-Man shot another web over her, smothering the flames.

Turning, he saw a bunch of ordinary people, dressed for casual Friday, drenched by the sprinklers, choking on smoke, and staring at him and the girl on the floor. There was no trace of Cheap Shot.


	12. What Happens Next

**_Chapter Twelve: What Happens Next_**

Spider-Man kicked glass from the window sill and hopped up, searching the walls and street below. Firemen were helping people down ladders and aiming jets of water through broken windows at the flames. Emergency vehicles were parked at odd angles on the street below. No super-villain in sight. On the wall above him, Fisk's hired assassin was cursing and shouting, still glued to the bricks by the web across his body.

"Hey! Joule!" he shouted. "Did you see anyone come out this way?"

"Are you _kidding_ me?" Joule squealed, his voice rising with outrage. "Get me down, get me down!"

"What, you got a date?"

Spider-Man left him hanging, and turned back to the people crowding behind him. The heat and smoke in the conference room were becoming unbearable. Quickly, Spider-Man spun silk from both wrists, creating a shining web that reached five stories down to the street. It looked a little like the rope challenge at fairs, where you could watch people trying to crawl over an open net of ropes that constantly twisted and threw the suckers off before they reached the top. A couple of the WXXP employees looked at Spider-Man as if he had lost his mind.

"It's easier than it looks, trust me," he said reassuringly, wishing he could offer an encouraging smile. He jumped back inside to pick up Cheap Shot's erstwhile hostage. Cradling the burned girl carefully, he took huge leaps down the web and in a few seconds reached an ambulance. He laid the moaning girl down carefully. The people crowded into the broken window weren't trying to follow, in spite of the increasing danger, and he hopped back up the web almost as quickly.

"This way, ma'am." Spider-Man offered a hand to a sophisticated woman with heavy make-up. Unwillingly, she took his hand and clumsily swung a foot out to rest on a strand of the web-ladder, a strand no thicker than yarn. The expression of surprise on her face when it took her weight without a jiggle made Spider-Man grin under his mask. More confidently, she found a handhold and climbed down without trouble, although slowly. As Spider-Man offered to help the next person, several others found the courage—or a great enough fear of burning—to step onto the fragile-seeming path down. A few clung and squealed, obviously terrified by the height, others scrambled quickly from rung to rung. In a few moments, the giant web was covered with descending employees. A media crew in a hovering chopper filmed the odd sight, which made a great video clip for the evening news.

Seeing the last employee clamber out the window, Spider-Man scurried up to where he'd left Joule. Ripping him free, he descended one more time, conscious that every second he delayed gave Cheap Shot that much more time to reach Fisk. Like most people in New York, Spider-Man knew exactly where Fisk was right now: presenting his curriculum donation on the lawn in front of the Colonial Rotunda, surrounded by students and teachers. Somehow, he doubted the presence of children would worry Cheap Shot, or slow down his murderous attacks. How many people would die in the next round of this war, if he wasn't quick enough to stop it?

Jumping lightly to the ground in front of an ambulance, Spider-Man set Joule down on the pavement near an empty ambulance. A paramedic hurried up.

"This guy's got some damage. He also wants to talk to a cop." Spider-Man said, quickly.

As the paramedic shrugged and helped Joule into the back of the ambulance to examine his injuries, Joule glared at the vigilante. Spider-Man pretended not to notice and waved urgently at a uniformed cop, who looked surprised and headed over.

"Are you nuts?" Joule hissed. "I'm not telling the cops a thing."

"Think hard about it, friend." Spider-Man said, his voice sharp, his arms folded. He didn't have time for this argument. "Your partner's body is in there, along with the remnants of some pretty heavy firepower. They're going to be all over you, whether you talk or not. Cooperation sounds like an option to me."

Joule gasped as the paramedic began cleaning his hands, and nervously watched the cop walk toward them. It was a safe bet Joule had a record, and Hendricks' body would take some explaining. He could almost see the wheels turning in the blond man's head as he thought the situation through. When the cop arrived, Spidey just cocked his head in Joule's direction. "Here's a witness, officer. He can tell you how all this got started."

"Yeah?" The cop looked from one to the other. "Aren't I suppose to arrest you, wall-crawler?"

"Can you do it some other time? I'm really booked for today," Spider-Man said lightly, jumping on top of the ambulance. The cop just snorted and opened his notebook, licking a finger and flipping the pages over before turning to Joule.

"Name?"

Joule hesitated with his mouth open, glared at the cop, and shut his mouth. Spider-Man waited impatiently, looking down at the scene, until Joule made up his mind.

"I want to talk to my lawyer."

Shaking his head in frustration, Spider-Man launched himself into the air, landing high on the wall of a neighboring skyscraper. _What time is it? Oh, right, I don't wear a watch. The presentation's at three...Cheap Shot's had more than enough time to get there. It'll take me what, twenty minutes to reach the Rotunda?_ As he reached the rooftops and prepared to swing westward, he spotted the news chopper, flying low through the billowing black smoke. _Now, there's an idea._

* * *

The helicopter pilot felt a jolt, as if he'd hit one of the landing skids against a building. Pulling the chopper up, into clear air, he craned his head to look out the window, panicked. When the window was suddenly filled with a webbed red head, he shouted and nearly lost control of the craft. 

Unable to make himself heard over the noise of the blades and the pilot's headphones, Spider-Man pointed with exaggerated gestures at the cameraman in the back of the helicopter and then jabbed his finger in the direction of the Rotunda. The pilot stared at him and the media crew exchanged bewildered looks. Spider-Man repeated his pantomime, and the news director finally said over the intercom, "I think he wants us to head that way!"

The pilot looked over his shoulder at the news director, who waved him forward and said, "Go on! What the hell—if Spider-Man's involved, it'll probably be news!"

Curving sharply, the helicopter took off over Manhattan, with its unusual passenger clinging to the landing skid.

* * *

Cheap Shot choked, doubling over as his lungs rejected the acrid smoke and soot that clogged them, as he made his way carefully down the alleyway. 

It had taken a split-second, while everyone's attention was diverted, to activate the cloak's camouflage function. He had waited silently, forcing back coughs, trying not to breathe, standing as still as possible. And it had worked, restoring his confidence after the shock of seeing Spider-Man appear so suddenly in front of him. The cloak, in that room full of flickering light and black haze, rendered him effectively invisible. It was all he could do not to laugh, watching Spider-Man's frantic astonishment at his disappearance.

How had the web-slinger _found_ him in the first place? Cheap Shot's head was pounding from the after-effects of the fire and his long stay in the smoky room. Each time he put one of his careful plans into execution, Spider-Man was there, hunting him, chasing him down, countering his every move.

He paused to rest one hand against the wall, an exhausted and furious old man. He'd been forced to wait until everyone else was out before stealthily making his way through the window, down the web. With police, firemen, victims, and the press milling around he'd had great difficulty slipping away without bumping into someone, or having anyone discern his wavery outline at close quarters. It had frightened him, all of it.

And the game hadn't been worth it. His plan to bait Fisk into sending his minions to steal the transmission code so he could take them out before meeting Fisk one on one had failed. Fisk hadn't considered him important enough to send more than a couple of minor thugs.

Drawing his lips back from his teeth in a silent snarl, Cheap Shot hurried forward again. The ground was prepared, his attack waiting to be put in motion. Fisk would soon know the error of underestimating him. It would be the last lesson Fisk ever learned.

* * *

As Wilson Fisk stepped up to a podium set on the sweep of wide marble steps leading up to the massive, domed Colonial Rotunda, he was beaming. Despite the cold weather, the lawn was filled with a milling crowd of teachers, parents, and students. Sitting in rows of folding chairs behind him were the city's VIP's, politicians and businessmen. The mayor sat next to his wife, the superintendent of schools smiled tightly, and a few carefully selected children under the supervision of fussy teachers waited to present tokens of appreciation to the philanthropist. Fisk was resplendent in a snowy white coat lined in white fur, his diamond-topped cane swinging easily from one hand. A cluster of microphones bloomed on the podium and the cameras were rolling. 

Spider-Man leaned forward, trying to scan the entire area as rapidly as possible. _Now, if I were a megalomaniacal fashion victim plotting a devious assault on a crime boss, where would I be?_ Losing patience with the helicopters altitude, he waved his thanks at the pilot and flipped into the air, spinning as he fell until he stretched fingers and toes to fasten onto the wall of an apartment building across the street from the Rotunda.

He heard Fisk's voice, booming and distorted, over a series of loudspeakers mounted on poles around the lawn. Spidey was too far away to make out the words, and didn't know how he was going to get closer without drawing attention. The flat lawn stretched from the street back to the domed building, packed with restless children and red-faced adults in bulky coats.

There were security officers for crowd control, of course, and he spotted two uniformed police officers, but there was also a large number of tough men dressed in trench coats standing around and looking uncomfortably out-of-place in the family atmosphere. _Guards out in force._ It crossed Spidey's mind that Fisk was prepared for trouble. Uneasy, he watched kids dash heedlessly past the grim-faced guards, the adults ignore their presence. The ceremony was winding to an end.

The loudspeakers blared, a feedback whine screeching to a peak. Like most of the audience, Spider-Man lifted his hands to his ears and winced. _Rotten sound system,_ he thought randomly. Down at the podium, Fisk was scowling, waving a media technician up to the steps to the cluster of microphones.

Glancing over the disturbed crowd of people trying to cover their ears, Spider-Man became aware that a number of the guards had drawn their guns and were pushing their way forward. For a split-second, he stared, wondering what they were doing. Then it clicked. Instantly, he leaped across the street to the spindly top of the nearest tree, then to a speaker that nearly gave way beneath his weight. Hopping from one wiggly pole to the next, he began to shout as soon as he thought there was a chance for him to be heard over the screech.

"Fisk! Everyone! Get down, get down!"

_If he can brainwash children, what's to stop him from brainwashing adults?_ He leaped again as the nearest gunman sighted down his weapon. _Fisk didn't think to check his own men for hidden transmitters, did he?_

A large man with a blank look on his face was pulling the trigger as Spider-Man yanked the automatic from his hand with a strand of webbing. The shot went wild overhead as Spider-man landed in front of the podium. As he twisted to confront a second attacker, the deafening echo of the gunshot—picked up by the microphones and amplified over the squealing loudspeakers—sent the screaming audience running in panic away from the Rotunda. The mayor threw himself down, his wife rolling beside him. Folding chairs tumbled and were kicked out of the way as people flattened themselves on the steps. A semi-circle of gunmen was closing in around the wide flight of marble stairs, shoving brutally through the fleeing crowd.

Spider-Man shot webs as fast as he could, coating weapons in sticky goo. He punched at the thugs within reach, knocking two cold with his fists, somersaulting into the air to kick another in the back of the head. But Fisk had brought thirty men to guard him, and he couldn't stop them all from firing. Bullets went flying into the steps.

Fisk was huddled behind the podium, which was wholly inadequate to protect his bulk. Next to him a little girl in a pink dress lay motionless, a sobbing teacher prone at her side. Spidey couldn't stop long enough to find out how badly the student was hurt. The superintendent of schools lost his head and made a mad run up the stairs toward the double doors of the Rotunda. He fell before he reached them, clutching his leg and screaming in pain. The guards were jostling each other in their mindless need to fire at their boss, their shots wide and dangerous to everyone in front of them.

_The loudspeakers—that whine. It triggered the attack, it's a signal._ Ducking a bullet that whizzed by him and ricocheted off the steps, Spider-Man flipped on to hands and pushed off to land next to the podium. Grabbing the cluster of wires leading from the microphones, he pulled them free. The whine abruptly cut out, and as suddenly the thunder of gunfire stopped. A small, mean-faced man with a .45 crooked his elbow and lowered his gun, confused. All around the steps, the gunmen backed away uncertainly.

Panting, Fisk rose heavily to one knee and reached for his cane. The former audience had fled the brown, trampled grass of the Rotunda lawn, but a line of policemen, guns drawn, were advancing over it, shouting for the guards to drop their weapons. Most did, still dazed.

Straightening and backing away from the podium, Spider-Man breathed a sigh of relief. Now, if he could only find Cheap Shot and shut him down before anything else happened. On the heels of that thought, his spider-sense went wild. Across the steps and the lawn, a grid of red light snapped into existence, crisscrossing in every direction. Spider-Man turned desperately to the police.

"Don't move! Stay back from the trip lines!" Naturally, the officers continued to advance, one or two looking curiously in his direction. Fisk and his guards, more aware of what they were up against, froze in place. A second later, the first cop crossed a glowing red line.

* * *

"I'm sure Peter just got held up," Mary Jane said soothingly. Aunt May smiled at her and patted her hand. 

"I know, dear. He's a good boy, it's only that sometimes he, well," the white-haired lady tilted her head ruefully, "loses track of time." She sent MJ a sharp look. Then she added softly, "Thank you so much, dear, for everything you've done for me. Including driving me home today."

MJ grinned and shrugged, fussing with the arm of her chair. Aunt May settled herself comfortably, closing her eyes. MJ thought she looked tired, and felt a flash of anger at Peter for leaving her stranded at the hospital.

"Peter's a good boy," Aunt May repeated, eyes still closed. MJ jumped guiltily. "You've become closer since graduation, haven't you?"

"In some ways," MJ answered uncomfortably. "He's...not the easiest person to get to know."

"He's been acting so very mysterious, lately. I thought you might know why." The dignified lady's tone was gentle and hurt, and there was an appeal in her voice that Mary Jane had never heard from her.

_I thought I did._ "No," she answered quietly. "I wish I did."

"Well." Aunt May laid her head on the back of the chair and changed the subject. "Would you mind if I turned on the news, dear?"

"Of course." MJ curled up on her chair as Aunt May peered at the remote, pushing the power button and choosing a channel. The television came to life. A female reporter was standing in front of some trees, holding a microphone to her face.

"—as we speak. The police have declared the situation at the Curriculum Presentation highly dangerous. All traffic through the area has been rerouted. There is no official report on casualties as yet, but our news copter estimates at least four officers down, wounded or dead, and an unknown number of civilian wounded. They also confirm that Spider-Man is involved, repeat, Spider-Man is on the scene."

"Spider-Man." Mary Jane sat up. "It seems like we're always hearing about that man," Aunt May said disapprovingly.

MJ raised her eyebrows. "Well, you know we've got to see what happens next," she teased. Aunt May smiled back and increased the volume.

* * *


	13. Victory

**_Chapter Thirteen: Victory_**

Spider-Man perched on top of a loudspeaker pole above the red-lined grid covering the lawn. Cops and gangsters, frozen in mid-advance, looked like they were playing a strange adult version of 'Red Light, Green Light'. He had managed to pull two of the cops activating the trip lines out of danger, but four blue-uniformed men he couldn't reach in time twitched and convulsed for what felt like an eternity to Spider-Man before lying motionless. Their gruesome example outlined the situation for everyone and the people became panic-paralyzed statues as he climbed to his position above the lethal playing field to figure out his next move.

It was the eye of the storm; for an eerie moment everything was quiet and still. Fisk, in the center of a red square, stood with his heavy cane gripped in one hand, breathing hard. Suddenly, a bright flash of white light near his feet made him jump fearfully away, almost to a trip line. Another flash followed. Suddenly the lawn was filled with searing flames darting up randomly, forcing people all around to jump and dance. One of Fisk's gunmen, the little guy with the sharp face, jumped too far and hit the edge of his square.

As the thug started to scream and jerk, Spider-Man sprang from the pole into the center of a square and did a handspring into the next, flipping end over end in and out of the squares to reach the man as fast as possible. Grabbing the back of his collar, he jumped high and wide—about two stories up and fifteen feet to one side—with the man dangling from one fist. Even as he dumped the man unceremoniously in the safe zone, popping flames forced another person into the trip lines. A uniformed woman was slapping madly at her burning pants. The terrible sound of adults screaming in pain and fear was coming from every side. On the marble steps, Fisk was bizarrely waltzing from side to side of his square, unexpectedly agile for his size. Out of the corner of his eye, Spider-Man could see cops taping off the area, forcing the press and the growing crowd of thrill-seekers back. The helicopter swooped and buzzed overhead.

Gunmen and police were winding their way out of the maze toward the edges, hopping awkwardly over trip lines and stumbling over the burning grass. One of the trees had gone up like a giant torch, flames crackling through its dry brown twigs, and the air was filled with the scent of burning wood and roasting flesh. Spider-Man bounced crazily over and around the area, trying to reach as many as he could and pull them to safety. He wished futilely that someone had thought to fill this park with a few tall buildings or even a concrete overpass or two—anything to give him a better framework to maneuver around than the spindly trees and wobbly poles. _I am SO not a back-to-nature kind of guy,_ he thought. His amusement was short-lived, as a man far across the flat lawn from him was caught in a spurt of flame.

_I'm on the defensive here, and I'm losing fast._ Spidey swung back up a tree, clinging by the tips of his fingers and looking more like a monkey than a spider. _Gotta take the fight to Cheap Shot, if I can find him. _He jumped back into the center of the lawn to yank another cop clear of the flames. Tumbling back into the giant game board, he caught a glimpse of red light flickering on the top of the Rotunda dome.

Squinting through the smoke, Spider-Man thought he could make out a black box, flashing like a strobe light in an arc across the lawn. _That could be the source of the laser-lines—at least, taking it out couldn't hurt. I don't think it's supposed to be up there._ As quick as thought, Spider-Man moved forward, through and over the shifting obstacle course, his ease and grace making it appear as simple as playing hopscotch. In seconds, he was crouched on the roof of the Rotunda porch, then scrambling up over the curve of the dome. He ducked automatically as his spider-sense went off the scale. Any further up and he would cross into the red grid being projected over the lawn below, its squares tight and tiny this close to their source.

Below on the Rotunda steps, Fisk was still swerving and jumping away from spurting jets of flame, his heavy face covered in sweat and his lips drawn back in a snarl. As the fat mob boss backpedaled to avoid a jet of fire, he stumbled and fell ludicrously on his rear, his feet flying up in front of him. The sudden fall saved his life. A bullet whined past his head, missing him by a hair. Jerking away from it, Fisk rolled heavily into a trip line.

The sound of the shot was lost in the commotion, overpowered by the roar of flame, the screams, and the blaring sirens. Oblivious to the newest attack, Spider-Man flattened himself along the curve of the roof. Gripping the concrete with his feet and resting his weight on his knees, he lay flat under the laser light as he slid his hand along and up. Taking careful aim at the miniature projector, he closed his fingers over his palm. The sticky ball of webbing hit the bull's-eye and the trip lines across the field winked out of existence.

Fisk barely had time to register an intense burst of pain before the lethal grid was deactivated. Panting harshly, he rolled over clumsily and used his cane to lever himself to his feet. Another shot buzzed past his ear, and he hit the ground again with a shout of fury.

On the dome, Spider-Man twisted and confirmed visually that the grid was gone, although the lawn was still flashing fire like the stage at a rock concert. With a wide grin under his mask, he bounded up to the cocooned box and crushed its metal and glass like paper. Back-flipping high in the air, he twisted to land back on the porch roof in his unique crouch, one hand resting lightly between his feet as he surveyed the battlefield below.

Beneath the trees on the far edge of the lawn, he saw the glint of sunlight reflecting from a rifle barrel just as he became aware of shots cracking into the Rotunda facade beneath him. He could distinguish the rifle barrel, but the grey metal simply disappeared into a shimmer like a patch of heat haze behind a tree. Blinking, he thought the smoke had affected his vision—but then remembered Cheap Shot's invisibility the night he had attacked Harry Osborn. _It's that cloak! I'd almost forgotten it, but it's some kind of camoflauge...wait, is that how he disappeared back at the WXXP building?_ Mentally he kicked himself, then leaped into action.

From the porch he soared to a loudspeaker pole, then to a patch of ground next to a limping cop who looked dazed and frightened. The odd, wavering, man-shaped outline moved quickly from the back of the lawn, unnoticed by the crowd. Cheap Shot seemed to be looking for a better angle to shoot at Fisk, who had laid his bulk as flat as possible against the marble steps and covered his head with his hands. Spider-Man moved to intercept the assassin before he could succeed in eliminating his target.

He landed on the brown grass and felt spider-sense tingling at the base of his skull. Springing away, he neatly avoided a spurt of white-hot flame. Unfortunately, the shell-shocked cop near him was restricted to human reflexes and fell screaming to the ground as the back of his coat ignited. Fluidly changing direction, the web-slinger slipped an arm around the man's waist and jumped with him to the police barrier, where he rolled him onto the ground and under the yellow tape. The fast roll put out most of the fire, and ambulance personnel swarmed toward him with blankets to put out the rest. Looking back over the park, Spidey saw people everywhere being helped by paramedics and policemen, who were picking their way over the lawn like a minefield. Too many victims lay motionless on the grass.

Pushing the body count from his mind, Spider-Man scanned the area for Cheap Shot. He had been there, on the other side of the lawn, heading for Fisk. Yes...barely visible but much closer to the Rotunda than he expected, Cheap Shot was hiding in his shimmering cloak. The solid rifle barrel extending from its protection was lowered squarely at Fisk's head. One squeeze of the trigger and the Kingpin of New York would be dead. Spider-Man realized that his last rescue had put him on the far side of the lawn—too far to reach them in time.

Without hesitation, Spider-Man sprayed webbing as fast and far as he could as he ran, hoping against hope that Cheap Shot was in range. _Come on, come on...Yes!_ A splatter of spider silk caught the barrel and knocked it sideways, forcing the shot wide. The shining silk also coated a patch of the swirling cloth, hardening into a patch of sparkling grey apparently floating in mid-air. Spider-Man, running forward, aimed now at the visible web and hit his target dead on, knocking Cheap Shot flat and covering his back and shoulders with a wide sticky web. _Got him!_

Cheap Shot fell to the ground, and Fisk was up and moving. Closer to the assassin by far than the vigilante, Fisk reached Cheap Shot first and raised his cane over his head, his face distorted with rage.

"Hey!" Spider-Man shouted, and shot a web at the gangster. It was hit by a spouting flame and fell short of its target. Fisk paid no attention, bringing the cane down with bone-shattering force on top of the webbed mass of golden cloak. The heavy stick hit nothing but cloth and the solid ground, the jarring rebound knocking Fisk backward. Cheap Shot, breathless and red-faced, his grey hair streaked with soot, wiggled his legs out from under the cocoon of web and cloak and dragged himself to his feet.

Snarling, Fisk stepped forward, hefted the cane over his shoulder like Babe Ruth and took aim at the old man's head. Spider-Man, finally reaching the warring villains, closed his fingers around the stick and pulled it from Fisk's grasp as he swung.

"You interfering insect—" Fisk's basso voice gave him a true predator's growl. He spun and threw a right hook which the vigilante ducked easily, following it up instantly with a powerful jab to his gut. Spider-Man blinked in surprise; the fat man was in astonishingly good shape. He'd almost felt that. Before Fisk could strike again, Spider-Man tossed the cane to one side and connected his fist to the fat man's chin.

Leaving Fisk unconscious on the grass, Spider-Man looked around for Cheap Shot. The elderly man had tottered up the stairs to the sheltering shadows of the porch as fast as he could move. Launching himself into the air, Spider-Man clung to the side of a column and aimed one wrist at the criminal. Without pausing, Cheap Shot hit a button on a thick band strapped to his arm as he pushed his way through the double doors of the Rotunda and disappeared inside. Spider-Man was thrown from his perch by a spectacular blast wave.

Rolling into a ball, he kept his head tucked in until he hit the ground. He splayed his hands and feet out to the ground, clinging to the earth to brake his momentum. Air rang and thundered around him as multiple explosions took out column after column, and the dome shook. A long black crack spread down the curved surface and the porch roof collapsed, folding in on itself and sliding down the marble steps.

Spider-Man shook the dust from his mask, his ears ringing, and peered up at what remained of the building. The front of the Rotunda was sagging drunkenly around a ragged cavity that had once been the porch. The columns had been reduced to heaps of debris, spilling out over the steps and mixed in with chunks of what had once been the roof. He stood quietly for a moment, shaking his head, amazed at the scope of the destruction.

"You know, buddy, that was a historical monument," a rough voice drawled sarcastically behind him. Spider-Man shot straight up, whirling mid-air to face Detective Lamont. The detective stood his ground, only leaning back slightly as Spider-Man landed on his feet a few inches from Lamont's face.

"Give me a heart attack, why don't you," the wall-crawler griped, embarrassed.

"Thought you were psychic," Lamont said smugly. Spider-Man rolled his eyes, forgetting that no one could see it.

The detective went on, "I was over at the WXXP building, what's left of it anyway, when I got the call to get over here because all hell was breaking loose."

Spider-Man ran a hand over his head—sending plaster dust flying—and took a moment to look around. Everyone in range had hit the ground when the blast went off, and people were helping each other to their feet and checking for injuries. The front of Lamont's usually immaculate shirt was smeared with dirt and soot. The broad lawn seemed oddly still and quiet, until he realized that the jets of flame had stopped and that he was half-deaf from the explosion.

Along one side of the lawn, a row of body bags had been laid out and were white with dust.

"What a mess..."

Lamont didn't hear his whisper. He was glaring angrily at the ruined porch.

"Was Cheap Shot under that?"

"No, I don't think so. He got inside before he set it off."

"Nice going, web-head."

"Hey, it's not like I—"

"So, you and your super-villain buddies accomplished exactly zero here, except to bring a lot of good men down."

Spider-Man gaped at Lamont. "Wait a second. I'm the good guy here, remember? I don't—"

"Break the law? Start fights big enough to destroy buildings? Put everyone around you in danger?" They were both talking loudly over their ringing ears to start with, and by the time Lamont finished he was shouting.

The hero bowed his head. _Like MJ. Like those kids in the ferry car, like Uncle Ben._ A sour tang filled his mouth and he felt weak, exhausted by more than the eventful day. The scientist in him, detached and logical, knew that Lamont's bitter accusation came from the detective's own grief and anger over the cops he knew who had died today, and from his sense of guilt over civilians the police hadn't managed to protect either—but a deeper part of him felt the justice of it. Once more he had failed to live up to his power and his responsibility. With all that he could do, lives had still been lost. Spider-Man raised his head.

"I'm going after Cheap Shot," he said clearly. "If I bring him in, can you hold on to him?"

Lamont took a deep breath. He set his hands on his hips, pushing his coat back, and frowned at the ground. "Yeah. One way or another."

Spider-Man nodded curtly and stepped toward the half-demolished building.

"Hey."

He paused, looking inquiringly back at Lamont.

"You're a pain, you know that?"

"Gee, thanks for letting me know."

"Anytime." Lamont wasn't smiling.

* * *

Harry Osborn was glued to the television set, almost forgetting to breathe as he watched live footage from City Hall Park and the Colonial Rotunda. All the confusion and noise couldn't hide one inescapable fact: Spider-Man was there. The helicopter camera caught flashes of a bright red mask and blue tights in contortionist tangles, moving so fast that even slow-motion replays could only hint at the action. 

_He's there. Ripping other people's lives apart the way he ripped mine apart._ Harry took a swallow of his beer. The rage he felt washed over him like the tide, swamping his thoughts, draining away only to leave him exhausted, empty. _He stole my father from me._

_Oh yeah? When was your father ever there for you, even before he died?_ whispered a soft, traitorous voice in his head. Harry lurched to his feet to grab another can of beer. _Shut up. Things were fine. We were fine...we had to be. I never had a chance to prove to him, prove to him that I could be the son he always wanted._ He popped the tab and drank deeply. _Peter, yeah, Peter was the kind of son he wanted._ Harry rubbed his eyes with one hand. He wasn't going to be jealous of Peter, not anymore.__

_Peter isn't going to avenge you, Dad. I am._ Harry nodded his head emphatically and drunkenly. He caught sight of Bernard, standing in the doorway. Something in his stiff expression made Harry wonder blearily if he'd been speaking out loud.

"Bernard, my man!" Harry waved at him.

"Is there anything more tonight, sir?" Bernard said, his icy tone clearly conveying his disapproval.

"Hell no. Goodnight, goodnight," Harry snarled, and Bernard bowed shortly before moving off. _Everyone looking at me like that. Even Peter looks at me like that._ His attention caught again by the newscast, Harry heard the reporter speaking.

"As the area is secured, emergency medical personnel are being called in from all over the city. Mayor Dunn is unharmed, repeat, unharmed, despite earlier reports. However, businessman and philanthropist Wilson Fisk, who hosted today's presentation, is being treated for minor injuries. Spider-Man has fled the scene." The cheery reporter smiled as the shot widened to include the smoking park. "Here is Detective Lamont, Head of NYC's new Paranormal Division, to explain the situation." She held her microphone out to a thin man who looked vaguely familiar to Harry.

_Fled the scene. Dammit._ Harry brooded. _Wonder if Pete's seeing this. Wonder if he knows what the bug is up to now._ Arching over the back of the couch, Harry snagged the telephone receiver, which slid from his fingers to the floor. Was it worth getting up for it? He shut his eyes and listened to the television. _Pete knows Spider-Man tried to kill me._

With a sigh, Harry pushed himself off the cushions, suddenly determined to get Peter on the phone and hear him say it, hear him say, "Yes, Harry, you're right. You're not being paranoid or unreasonable. How could I have missed it before—the man is a menace." Peter would be impressed, admiring. "He killed your father and only you had the guts to stop him." The fantasy conversation made him smile. Yes, he needed to talk to Peter now.

Harry hit the speed dial, unaware that his sanity was making an attempt to reach out and call for help. It rang and rang, but Peter didn't answer the phone at his apartment. _Oh right. Aunt May, that's where he'll be._ He hit another speed dial number.

* * *

Inside, the circular main room of the Rotunda was mostly intact. Sunlight filtered through the crack in the dome and poured through the shattered front, sparkling off of the bronze statues lining the walls and lighting up the dust in the air. Spider-Man glanced around uncertainly, wondering where Cheap Shot had headed after diving inside. The explosion had been immediate, so he had to have gotten under cover fast. 

There, in the wall to the right of the entrance and almost buried in rubble from the porch, was a door. Spidey scrambled onto the piled masonry and peered at the bent metal. It must have been a fire door. Now it was jarred free from its frame and he could see a dark space behind, with stairs leading downward. Basement access?

It only took a few moments of shoveling with his hands to clear a path and he pulled the door open without effort—although the screech of tortured metal was echoed by an uneasy rumble from the ceiling—and he slid through the buckled doorframe into the silent blackness. _If this was a horror movie, this would be where I yell at the TV 'Don't do it!'. _Spidey chuckled nervously. _I mean, you know there's a murderer lurking down there, setting traps for you._ He took a deep breath to force the twinge of fear back and cautiously crept down the side wall, avoiding the steps.

Leaving behind the light from the doorway, the wall-crawler moved into the thick gloom. Every sense alert, he heard only his own breath and the soft sound of his fingers and toes touching and gripping. He lifted his right hand and stretched it to the wall in front of him, but there was only air underneath his fingers. The unexpected empty space left him off-balance and he rocked backward. _Like the way it feels when you miss a step,_ he thought. More cautiously, he explored the edges of the opening with his fingers and realized it must be a doorway at the bottom of the stairway.

_So, did he go through here or out into the basement somewhere?_ Spider-Man considered it for a moment. On the left he sensed an open space stretching out from the stairs. That was under the Rotunda. The door next to him opened to the right, and there was a faint, cold breeze coming from it. It must lead away from the Rotunda. Making up his mind, Spider-Man gripped the top edge of the doorframe and pulled himself through it onto the ceiling. Brushing the wall to each side with his hands, he decided he was in a narrow hall and made his way along it upside-down.

Before long, he reached a turn and another doorway—and finally, a glimmer of light. He crawled faster, the light revealing dampish brick walls around him and a concrete floor. He'd heard urban legends about New York's subterranean city, sewers and subway lines and long-forgotten tunnels. The light was coming from wire-covered bulbs at regular intervals, so apparently he was in a maintained and remembered part. Unless he'd gotten completely turned around, he was headed south-east toward the river.

A cross-tunnel bisected the one he was in, and he paused to look both ways, baffled. Was Cheap Shot even in this maze? Just then he heard a cough, distant but clear. He turned left, skittering rapidly along the bricks, dodging the light fixtures. Bouncing around a turn, he saw a bent figure shuffling down the tunnel ahead of him. _Cheap Shot._

He sensed no immediate danger from the old man, but he wasn't about to repeat his mistakes. No overconfidence this time. Spider-Man spun a web blocking the tunnel ahead of the shambling man and just to be on the safe side, he turned and blocked the tunnel behind him as well. He kept his eyes on Cheap Shot, approaching cautiously, and wondering why his spider-sense remained silent.

Cheap Shot brought himself up short when he saw the gleaming strands stretch from wall to wall, the seemingly fragile threads cutting off his escape. He straightened, coughing again, and faced his enemy with his head up and his hands by his side. The web-slinger raised his hand to cocoon the villain, still expecting a tricky move.

"Wait," Cheap Shot called harshly. He couldn't go on right away, bent double and coughing too hard to speak. Spider-Man realized that Cheap Shot's suit was scorched, his hair full of dust, his broken hand bleeding around its cast. It hadn't been an easy day for the septuagenarian.

"You've won," he finally choked out. "There's nothing more I can do. But may I ask you, before you take advantage of your victory, to grant me one favor?"

The vigilante's first thought was, _You've got to be kidding me._ Then he wavered. Cheap Shot stood quietly in front of him, old, tired, and broken. It didn't feel like much of a triumph. Against his better judgment, he hesitated and then lowered his hand, muscles tensed to move if Cheap Shot so much as twitched.

"What kind of favor?"

"Nothing more than to indulge me by listening to what I have to say. I doubt I will live long enough," he coughed again, "to stand trial. Let this, then, be my chance to speak in my own defense."

Spider-Man wasn't sure he wanted to hear this. But there was part of him that wanted to know, to _understand_ how any sane human being could do the terrible things that Cheap Shot had done and feel himself justified.

"All right," he heard himself say helplessly. "Go ahead."

* * *

_A/N: Just a quick note to thank everyone who has sent me a review, you guys encourage me when I'm feeling like I can't write._

_J: Yes!_

_Betty Brant: Wow, I'm blushing. And your story is great ("Excuses, Excuses" go read for wonderful PP/MJ romance)._

_And everyone else, again, thank you!_


	14. Final Exam

**_Chapter Fourteen: Final Exam_**

When the phone rang, Mary Jane jumped to answer it before Aunt May woke up. The old lady had dozed off while watching the on-going news coverage. MJ had continued to watch, guiltily hoping for another glimpse of Spider-Man on film while she tried to work out her feelings about Peter. She'd been so wrong about him. It made her question a lot of things—like, why was he always late or missing, if he wasn't running around in tights? Watching Aunt May gently excuse him for letting her down made MJ angry, made her wonder about her own delusion that Peter was Spider-Man. Was she covering for Peter too, just because she loved him?

_What do you mean, "just because you love him"? Is there any better reason to give someone the benefit of the doubt?_ MJ bit her lip at the thought. _Right. I bet Mom told herself the same thing before she married Dad._ Then she was horrified with herself. Peter was nothing like that, whatever was happening in his life. And whatever was happening in his life, he didn't want her there.

By the time Harry called MJ had worked herself into a funk of depression and doubts. She was almost glad to hear Harry's voice. At least this would distract her from crying.

"MJ? Figures," Harry said. "Let me talk to Peter, 'kay?"

"Are you drunk, Harry?"

"Just get me Peter, c'mon." Mary Jane rolled her eyes and silently patted herself on the back for getting out of _that_ relationship. Harry was slurring his words and sounded mean.

"Peter isn't here yet. I'm sitting with Aunt May, um, until he gets here," she explained, tugging on the phone cord.

There was a pause and she could hear Harry breathing hard. "I need to talk to him."

"Yeah, well, looks like he isn't going to be around when you need him, either," MJ snapped. "So, why don't you take a break from Spider-Man and go looking for Pete instead? Do you both a world of good." Slamming the phone down, MJ took a deep breath. That felt good. She was so tired of getting jerked around by the guys in her life.

"Who was that, dear?"

Jumping, MJ turned to face Aunt May, who was struggling to sit up straight in the faded armchair and who had both eyebrows raised. "Oh. Um, sorry it was Harry..." Mary Jane blushed. "I didn't mean to wake you up." _Did she hear what I said about Peter?_

"Maybe you should lose your temper more often, dear. It sounded to me like you gave Harry some good advice," Aunt May said softly. MJ laughed a little and tugged her bangs out of her face.

"Well, I didn't want to—"

The television interrupted her with a loud fanfare and eye-catching graphics. "We have a new development in the attack on the Colonial Rotunda at City Hall Park. Part of Frankfort Street, next to the park, has collapsed, apparently due to an underground explosion. We join Marisol Gutierrez at the scene..."

Aunt May picked up the remote control and clicked the television off. "You know, I think I've heard about enough of that," she decided, pushing herself up slowly. "Would you like something to eat, MJ?"

* * *

In the tunnels beneath City Park, Cheap Shot coughed politely into his hand and raised his head to look at Spider-Man. His face was grey and his white hair covered with dust. Still, as he stood to offer his defense he had all the dignity of the senator he once had been. His soft, raspy voice was filled with emotion as he addressed the uneasy but fascinated vigilante.

"I know something about your exploits, Spider-Man. Like me, you have been labeled a criminal for acting in the interests of peace and justice," he began.

Spider-Man spluttered. "Are you _insane_? Peace? Do you even know the meaning—" Cheap Shot raised a hand.

"Please, let me continue." He looked down, frowning thoughtfully. "Yes, I can see how ironic that must sound to you. Consider the irony of your own position, then. You bring petty criminals to justice, catching minnows and the occasional big fish without impacting the sea of crime in the slightest. You run around patching holes while the city crumbles to the ground. Tell me," Cheap Shot looked up with a serious expression, straight into Spider-Man's mask, "tell me honestly, can you say that all your efforts have changed anything? That you have really made a difference?"

Spider-Man remained huddled, silent and motionless, against the ceiling.

"You've felt it," Cheap Shot stated. "The frustration, the futility of it all? Yes, like you I use violence to achieve my ends, but only out of necessity. You see, I have found the solution, the solution to all the ills that eat away at this city, and at our country—the way to have 'peace and justice for all'.

"We concern ourselves with properly educating children, with what they see and hear and learn. Every child hears his teachers, parents, all adults talk about right and wrong. From infancy he is told to respect people of all colors, taught not to steal or fight, to recycle, warned not to take drugs, asked to help others."

Cheap Shot paused, and his expression turned venomous. "But they don't listen!" he spat. Spider-Man started and curled his fingers against his palm.

"I'm not even talking about the lost ones, the drug-soaked gun-toting thugs that roam the streets—although my plan will save them, as well," he continued more calmly. "I mean the housewife that votes for the man who is the right color. The executive who gouges his employees to swell his own bank account. The student who cheats on her exams. The everyday hatred and greed that has swamped us."

Spider-Man understood too well what Cheap Shot was saying. For months now he had been plunged into the darker, dirtier side of New York. It was a casually brutal, tragic thread running through the texture of life that people chose not to see. He cringed as the images flooded through his mind—gangs shooting or knifing each other in the streets, a sixth-grader with a drug problem, the battered wife defending her husband—all he had seen in the endless fight he had chosen to wage. It wasn't invisible, and it didn't happen in a vacuum. It was made possible with every little act of meanness, ignorance, and fear. What difference had he made? Was it hopeless?

But this couldn't be the answer. He listened in growing horror as Cheap Shot explained his Consensus Plan, striding back and forth and gesturing eloquently. As Spider-Man had thought, small hypnotic devices were set in backpacks, calculators—anywhere students would be in range of their mind-altering waves. But while Spider-Man had focused on the advertising gains Fisk would receive from using the devices, he had missed the obvious: that the children would become entirely suggestible, accepting everything they heard. He remembered Lamont commenting on the platitudes contained in the textbooks, not realizing they were the whole point, as far as this megalomaniac was concerned. Didn't Cheap Shot realize how his 'solution' could be misused—was _already_ being abused by Fisk? But that wasn't the point. Even if the devices had only the results Cheap Shot dreamed of, Spider-Man knew it was wrong.

Cheap Shot leaned forward. His politician's delivery was passionate, carefully calculated to persuade. "The idea is so brilliant in its simplicity. Always, power has come from the people, and where has it gotten us?" He waved dismissively. "Now, that can change. The adults are already lost, too set in their ways to be permanently affected. But the children," he smiled, "they will hear each and every lesson with all the power of my hypnotic devices opening their minds. Each moral principle will sink deeply into their subconscious and become part of who they are. All of them will grow into responsible, righteous citizens to guide us where we need to go," he finished jubilantly.

For a long moment, Spider-Man was speechless, trying to bring his anger under control. "You know," he said finally, "that's the sickest thing I've ever heard."

Caught up in the fervor of his vision, the old man actually blinked and stepped back. He quickly recovered his poise, shaking his head sorrowfully. "I have been impressed by your intelligence, your commitment to your cause. I expected you understand how my plan will work to turn people away from what is wrong and to follow what is right," he said.

"Who are you to decide—"

"Please don't give me that tired argument about who gets to decide what is right and wrong," he snapped. "I'm not talking about controversial subjects here. No one wants racism, theft, pollution. The children will learn what everyone agrees they should learn." Cheap Shot folded his arms.

"That's not—you're not talking about learning. Learning is when you think, when you receive information and evaluate it. Learning means you make mistakes." Spider-Man chose his words carefully. "Kids—people—they don't always do what is right. When they do, it has meaning, because they're—we're—not robots. Not brainwashed, not hypnotized. Because we chose to do what is right."

"That's it? That's your argument? Is all the misery you see worth it for some academic right to free will?" Cheap Shot was sneering now.

"What about the people you've killed?"

"Aren't a few lives a small price to pay for a city free of hatred and destruction?"

Spider-Man took a deep, shaky breath and bowed his head. He wouldn't convince Cheap Shot of anything, he knew that. But for himself, for his own peace of mind, he needed to put his convictions into words.

"I made the wrong choice once," the young man who'd become a vigilante remarked painfully. "A life was the price paid for my mistake. Now I do make a difference, no matter what you say, with every life I save and with every crime I stop. Because everyone's life is more than a price to be paid." Spider-Man felt his spider-sense buzz to life. He lifted his arm and aimed at the former politician. "And the only choices I have the right to make are my own."

A web spun out and around Cheap Shot's thin body, pinning his folded arms to his chest. Unseen, one of Cheap Shot's hands pressed hard against his jacket, against the switch of one last transmitter tucked into his breast pocket. Far down the tunnel, there was a rumbling explosion. Cheap Shot tumbled inelegantly to the ground, wrapped like a mummy.

"I just blasted a hole through the wall between this tunnel and the river, Spider-Man," he said, voice muffled against the dusty brick floor. "The water will reach us within moments. I know the quickest way out of the path of the flood. I'll show you if you set me free, and we will both live." Spider-Man felt his ears pop as the air pressure between the brick walls increased.

"Yeah, right." Ignoring the ultimatum, Spider-Man scooped Cheap Shot up. He ripped his way through the web blocking the tunnel back to the Rotunda, and moved fast through the dank corridor. Springing from wall to ceiling to floor, he raced against the sensation of danger and the sound of water rushing toward them. Cheap Shot struggled and flailed in his arms, slowing him down.

"Stay still!" Spider-Man yelled. He turned right down the next corridor and raced back toward the Rotunda basement. As he came around the last corner, carrying his prisoner under his arm, he flipped forward on one hand before seeing the rubble that filled the doorway into the basement. _Shock from that last explosion, must've brought more of the Rotunda down._ Unable to break his forward momentum, he let his feet continue over his head to hit the floor and then pushed off again, spinning midair to land running back the way he had come. Cheap Shot screamed and gagged, apparently finding Spider-Man's acrobatics hard to take.

"Which way?" Spider-Man demanded. "Come on, is there still a way out?"

"Go, go straight," Cheap Shot managed to cough weakly, bouncing limply in Spider-Man's grip.

Frantically, Spider-Man leaped through the tunnel intersection, glancing to his left as he passed. He saw a wall of green water crash through the corridor, smashing from side to side with unbelievable force and moving toward the crossing like a speeding car. He flipped to the ceiling and sprinted forward, his eyes darting back and forth across his path, searching desperately for a manhole, access to an upper tunnel—anything to get out of the path of the flood. _Come on, come on._ The water shooting through the tunnel behind him, as if it were being squirted through a giant water-pistol, was right on his heels and Spider-Man found himself mentally calculating the cubic volume of water in the Hudson River with one detached part of his mind while the rest began gibbering in panic. Then the lights went out.

_Oh, great,_ the panicked part of his mind whimpered. The edge of the water hit him from behind, tossing him forward like paper in the wind. Spider-Man held his breath, tightened his hold on Cheap Shot and scrabbled at the ceiling, unable to resist the rushing force that closed over him. Suddenly, the back of his head hit something slender and hard, and before the relentless water could carry him past it, he grabbed and held onto the bar. Letting his body float, he pulled against it and drew his head back upstream, feeling upward with his forehead in the dark. _Yes!_ There was a second bar above the first. Lungs burning, he fought the current and clung to his limp—drowned?—burden. Slowly, he hooked a leg through the first bar and swung his free hand up to the next, then strongly pulled himself upward, only to hit his head hard against the roof. The pain and fear made him gasp in river water. He choked, but refused to give into the terror, and fought the urge to breathe in more water as he steadied his grip on the bars. This had to be a way out.

Feeling along what he realized must be a ladder, he found a water-filled opening overhead on the other side. Awkwardly, Spider-Man managed to squirm his way around the narrow edge of the ladder and hooked his legs back through the bars on the right side. Gripping the rungs, he hauled himself one-handed upward into the shaft. He was growing lightheaded from the lack of air. The current pushed him hard against the ladder, making each rung a victory until he was past the lip of the shaft and the current abruptly slackened and disappeared.

Blood pounding in his head and chest feeling ready to explode, Spider-Man kicked off and upward from the rungs. He rose through the water and suddenly broke the surface, bobbing down again just as fast. Grabbing at the ladder again, he brought himself back up and gulped the dark, blessed air deeply into his lungs. Belatedly, he remembered Cheap Shot and hauled his head out of the water too, although the assassin didn't move. Tired to the bone, Spider-Man climbed blindly toward street-level.

Shaking the water off his eyepieces, he peered at the end of the shaft above him. A dim light had been growing over the past few minutes until it revealed the rusted ladder and the cement walls of the shaft. Resting at the top of the rungs, Spider-Man realized that the shaft ended in another tunnel, a tunnel that oddly enough was filled with wan daylight. Rolling Cheap Shot onto the floor of the tunnel, Spider-Man clambered wearily onto the bricks. A few steps brought him to a jumbled heap of asphalt and concrete, and standing on top of it he was able to poke his head through a large hole in the ceiling.

The fading evening sunlight was dazzled his eyes and he shaded them with one hand. The first thing he saw was the sidewalk, tilted and cracked. Blankly, he looked around and saw that the whole road was tilted, both sides sloping down toward the large open crack in the middle. Bright orange road blocks had been set up on each side, and beyond them was a milling crowd of people who were beginning to shout and point at Spider-Man's head sticking up out of the pavement.

With a sigh, Spider-Man ducked back down and hefted Cheap Shot over his shoulder, even that minor weight seeming like too much for him right now. He jumped heavily to the surface of the street, walked slowly to the barrier on the left and dropped Cheap Shot to the ground, not very gently.

A fireman rushed up to him and Spider-Man waved weakly at Cheap Shot. "Drowned, wet down there," he croaked. The fireman shouted for paramedics and bent to check the old man's breathing and heart. Spider-Man wavered where he stood, too tired to move, while people bustled all around him with oxygen and blankets. Apparently, Cheap Shot was still alive, if barely.

"Damn if you didn't get him," someone said. Spider-Man turned his head and saw two Detective Lamonts standing next to him. He blinked. "Good news is, we got video footage of him trying to shoot Fisk and you stopping him, which is enough to hold on to him. If he makes it."

Spider-Man tried to nod intelligently. Lamont grabbed his arm and yanking him back upright. "Been a rough day?"

"You could say that," the vigilante whispered.

Lamont nodded, the motion making Spider-Man's head swim. "That guy you brought in earlier today, Joule? He had a couple of warrants out against him, so he's cutting a deal. He'll turn in all the info he and his partner collected on Cheap Shot in return for us dropping the charges against him. We don't have it yet, but I'm thinking it's enough to make a slam-dunk case."

"What about Fisk?"

"Joule won't talk about who hired him. And Fisk is currently receiving all kinds of media attention, for heroically surviving the assassination attempt. I doubt Joule's evidence will contain anything showing that Fisk was in on it. The guy's slick." Lamont shrugged. "Hell, it's obvious he had to be, but I don't see him going down. You win some, you lose some."

Spider-Man looked down at Lamont's hand, which was still gripping his arm. "This mean I'm under arrest?"

Lamont gave him a hard grin, looking tired himself. "You know what? That's my job now. I'm in charge of catching you freaks, they're calling it a promotion." He snorted.

"Congratulations, Mulder."

"Re-think that crack, web-head, because right now I'm feeling pretty nice. If you can make it out of here, go."

Spider-Man looked at him, then nodded slowly. "Thanks."

Lamont nodded solemnly back, then smiled. "I'm already regretting it. Get lost."

Taking a deep breath, Spider-Man raised his arm and shot a web to the top of a nearby building. Jerking on the line, he let the rebound lift his weight and soared up out of the crowd. People turned and called out, pointing and waving as they saw his silhouette outlined black against the setting sun. Lamont, lighting a cigarette, didn't look up.

* * *

It was late, and Aunt May had gone to bed before Mary Jane heard footsteps outside the front door. She listened to the sound of someone fumbling with a key, and bolted out of her chair, knowing it had to be Peter. She reached it before he could get it unlocked, turned the bolt and flung it open, prepared to give him a piece of her mind—even if she had to do it in whispers to keep from disturbing Aunt May.

Peter stood on the doorstep, dressed in jeans and a jacket, his hair wet. His shoulders were slumped and his eyes were exhausted, but the instant he saw her he brightened and smiled. Mary Jane felt her anger evaporating. What had happened to him?

"MJ, hi," he said softly.

"Peter—oh, just come in." Mary Jane backed up and let him past her. "Peter, where have you been? You were supposed to pick up Aunt May, she had to call me, what happened?" Expectantly, she looked at him, waiting for him to talk to her, waiting for him to let her in to his life, really just waiting for him like she had been waiting since the day of Norman Osborne's funeral. She saw the light die out of his face and he looked down, shrugging.

"Ah, there was, well, there was a disturbance." He looked at her, his expression mild, apologetic, and completely closed. _Oh, Peter._

Sighing, Mary Jane closed the door.

* * *

**_Epilogue_**

"I realize that with finals over, I'm lucky any of you came to class today," Dr. Connors said dryly, "but I'm going to ask you a favor. After you fill out and turn in your instructor evaluation forms—which will remain completely anonymous—please write a short paragraph on what you learned this semester and leave it for me before you go. It will help me greatly to know what you saw as the highlights of the course."

Peter leaned his head on his hand and tapped his pen against the page in front of him. _What did I learn this semester?_ He thought wryly that most of what he'd learned hadn't been in class.

_I learned that being Spider-Man costs me more than I thought. _After checking in on Aunt May, he'd gone home and slept for nearly twenty-four hours straight. It was only Sunday, when he remembered that his backpack was still stuck to a rooftop near the WXXP building, that he'd also remembered his essay and the scholarship application. He'd tried to turn it in on Monday. Connors hadn't been impressed, and had said so. In detail. Peter winced as he remembered Connors' sarcasm, and worse, his confused disappointment. It was unlikely that Dr. Connors would be making an extra effort on Peter Parker's behalf anytime soon.

Scribbling some meaningless phrases on his paper, Peter continued to think about it. _I learned that the good guys don't always win._ Fisk was still being lauded by the press, and was playing the hero to the hilt. Also, he'd managed to insinuate that Spider-Man had been in league with Cheap Shot. Even the revelation that the school materials were loaded with hypnotic devices hadn't hurt him much—he'd simply been innocently outraged that Cheap Shot had set up such a diabolical scheme to sabotage a charitable act. Some of his sponsors were under investigation; some had covered their tracks. Stabbing his pen down on a period, Peter hoped that the Kingpin was suffering behind the scenes from letting his partners in crime down. Somehow, though, he doubted it.

_I learned that keeping secrets from my friends is a good way to lose friends._ Mary Jane was more distant, since Aunt May got out of the hospital. She wasn't calling him much, anymore. He wondered how long it would take her to find someone else to love. Sighing, he handed the paragraph he'd written to Dr. Connors without meeting his eyes and shuffled his way out of the classroom. Harry had started a new project, something about funding research into energy sources, which sounded like a new direction for OsCorp. Peter sincerely hoped it would work out. Maybe if Harry had some success with his business ventures, his need to hunt down Spider-Man would fade. He was already drinking less, caught up in the excitement of making deals and arranging contacts. Maybe, maybe, they'd be able to be better friends again when Harry got back on his feet, emotionally speaking. Peter hoped so.

Swinging his backpack over his shoulder, he crossed the campus lawn toward the bus stop. Now that finals were over and he didn't have any deadlines hanging over him, crime had slowed down and he had more time than usual. He thought he'd use it to try to find a job—he didn't have time for one, but he didn't have any money, either. Peter looked up at the cloudless sky.

_On the other hand, I learned that it doesn't matter if I change the world or not. I learned that the difference I make is enough for me._ Peter smiled, as the bus pulled up, and thought about the tourist he'd saved from being mugged that morning. He thought about the way people cheered for him, the way they'd stood up for him against the Green Goblin, about kids in school learning or choosing not to learn, about all the times he'd made life a little better for someone. He swung onto the bus with a little more lift in his step.

_I guess that it's worth it, even if I can't seem to catch a break with the rest of my life,_ he laughed to himself, and started to whistle softly.

_"Raindrops keep fallin' on my head..."_

**fin**

* * *

* * *

_A/N: Hello, out there. My apologies that this took so long to complete. All I can say is, real life has been hard on me lately but it's great to be writing again—so maybe I'll start that next story I've had in mind for awhile..._

_Betty: I got your review today with this about half done, so you are responsible for it getting finished and out there today. Thanks!_

_Me: This is it, folks._

_Mark C: Guess the Kingpin will have to wait..._

_And thank you to everyone else who reviewed, it is what makes writing so much fun. See you soon!_


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